ISU revokes neutral status of Kamila Valieva and three more Russian skaters

The International Skating Union has confirmed that it revoked the neutral athlete status of Kamila Valieva, ruling the Russian figure skater out of international competition. Valieva was 15 when a sample taken two months before the Beijing 2022 Olympics tested positive for trimetazidine, a banned heart medication. She had helped Russia win team gold, a result later annulled, which moved the United States to the top of the podium.

She is not alone: the ISU also stripped neutral status from men’s skater Mark Kondratiuk, her teammate in Beijing, and from ice dancers Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin. According to the state agency TASS, Russian Sports Minister Mikhail Degtyarev said all four will appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) with legal backing from the federation. Valieva returned to competition in February after serving a four-year ban, but she was already excluded from the Milano Cortina 2026 Games.

Since 2022, Russian and Belarusian skaters can only enter ISU events as Individual Neutral Athletes, subject to strict vetting: status is denied to anyone serving in the military or security services, who took part in military operations since February 2022, or who publicly supported the war. The ISU did not specify which criterion Valieva failed. For the 2026-27 season, 234 neutrality declarations have been submitted by federations in Russia and Belarus.

For clubs and event organisers, the episode is a reminder that an international calendar only works with clear rules and reliable ice at every venue. Napapiri has been manufacturing, renting and selling real-ice rinks for more than 30 years — the expert since 1993 — and we know a consistent surface is the foundation of any competition. Need a rink for your event? We send a quote within 24 hours. Source: Reuters.

Cover photo: Rustem Kadyrov / Tatarstan.ru, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY 4.0.