For Kamila Valieva, this outcome was far from sweet.
The renowned Russian figure skater received a four year ban in early February 2024 from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) after testing positive for TMZ (trimetazidine) during a 2021 competition.
However, the 17-year-old’s lawyers maintained that the drug—which is a prohibited substance in sport for its ability to make the heart function better—ended up in her system after eating her grandfather’s strawberry dessert, according to NBC News.
Kamila’s lawyers claimed that her grandfather—who allegedly has taken TMZ for a heart condition since 2018—may have accidentally contaminated a dessert he made for her ahead of the 2021 Russian national competition, as he used the same chopping board to prepare the dish as he did to crush his heart medication.
In CAS documents, the figure skater claimed to have eaten her grandfather’s dessert “by bits” throughout the 2021 competition.
And while the three-person CAS panel described her as “an honest, straightforward and credible witness,” Kamila’s strawberry dessert story had no “concrete” evidence other than her grandfather’s word that he was using the drug.
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