The day before the start of the hearings at the Court of Arbitration for Sport ( CAS) in the case of Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva, her professional colleague from the United States, Vincent Zhou, issued a lengthy statement in which he branded all participants in the process, accusing them of failing to protect the interests of clean sport. A correspondent about why one becomes ashamed of the stupidity of an American figure skater, and disgusted by meanness.
The American does not understand anything about the topic. If Vincent Zhou tried to come up with a manifesto for the rights of clean athletes, he did not succeed. Because after the very first lines of the appeal of the American figure skater, who competed at the same Olympics in Beijing and, in theory, took some kind of anti-doping literacy course, it becomes clear that his level of competence in this area is approaching zero.
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“Kamila Valieva’s sample, taken six weeks earlier (before the Olympic team tournament), showed the presence of trimetazidine in her. Under normal conditions, this would immediately reset the result of the Russian team, and the award ceremony would take place as planned — we, the Japanese and Canadian teams would receive our medals. But the Disciplinary Anti-Doping Committee of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (DAK RUSADA), with the support of CAS, decided that different anti-doping rules should apply to Valieva, since she is 15 years old. So, for the first time in modern Olympic history, no medals were awarded,” writes Zhou.
There have been many things in modern Olympic history. For example, in 2002 in Salt Lake City, the Western press, which had approximately the same level of understanding of figure skating as Zhou did in anti-doping, pushed second gold medals to the Canadian sports pair. But that’s not about that now. And, for example, that it’s not for nothing that they study mathematics in schools. In the American ones, it seems, too, but Zhou apparently skipped classes on this subject. Otherwise, the ability to add 2 and 2, as well as the minimum skill of logical thinking, would have helped Vincent not to flog such utter nonsense.
It turns out that according to the Zhou system, you can simply add doping to any opponent, instead of fighting him? After all, the American skater claims that there is no need to find out where the prohibited drug in the sample came from. There is a positive test result — he took the medals from the champion and gave them to the loser. It's simple.
How is Zhou similar to Sharikov? Fortunately, even the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), for all its odiousness, does not stoop to such primitivism. Makes it possible to open sample B, conducts a trial — that is, protects the athlete’s rights. Whether it's a 15-year-old or a 30-year-old, it doesn't matter. And the maxim that it was DAK RUSADA together with CAS (and not the International Olympic Committee, as in reality) postponed the award ceremony is just beyond the bounds. DAK RUSADA and CAS allowed Valieva to the personal tournament — and only that.
In principle, you don’t have to read any further of the American figure skater’s statement. Delirium on delirium and delirium drives. With Vincent Zhou, as they say, everything is clear. But whoever takes the risk will learn a lot of new things. For example, that in Russia anti-doping laboratories were destroyed and informants were killed, and yet Russia did not miss a single Olympics. And of course, “it’s not Valieva alone who uses doping, but a wide range of Russian figure skaters, and Zhou himself knew this very well. All of them are covered by the corrupt officials of the IOC, WADA and CAS, who are unable to protect his, Vincent’s, interests — and his comrades.
In general, only one thing can be said about all this: Bulgakov’s hero, I remember, also gave speeches of “cosmic scale and cosmic stupidity.” But this was excusable for Sharikov — after all, for obvious reasons, he did not come out as intelligent.
Vincent, according to open sources, studies at Brown University in Rhode Island. And a more correct version would be that this is not illiteracy (although it cannot be ruled out), but meanness. It was not possible to penetrate the hearings in the case of the Russian figure skater and put pressure on the judges live (and with such powerful theses they could have started chanting slogans there) — so let’s put pressure with such deceitful and saturated hatred towards our own, even if they are on the other side of the ocean, to fellow members of the “family,” as the International Skating Union (ISU) calls its community, publication. And we will release it, of course, on the eve of the start of the trial in Lausanne. Let's create a background.
I would like to believe that CAS arbitrators, who have seen everything in their lifetime, will not fall for such a cheap trick. The public, of course, can, especially those who do not know the topic, but follow only the headlines. But she will figure it out eventually. And Vincent is wasting his karma in vain — there are so many examples in life when this does not end well.