No ceremony if ROC skater Valieva wins medal at Beijing 2022, says IOC

BEIJING - There will be neither flower nor medal ceremony if Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva finishes in the top three in the women's single skating at the Beijing Olympic Winter Games, said the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Monday.

There will also be no medal ceremony for the team event at Beijing 2022, where the 15-year-old skater helped the Russian Olympic Committee to win the gold last week, beating the United States and Japan to second and third respectively.

Medal ceremonies will be organized once the case of Valieva has been concluded, said IOC.

Valieva had been provisionally banned on February 8 when a sample taken in December last year returned a positive result for banned substance trimetazidine. Yet the Court of Arbitration for Sport declined to impose a provisional suspension on Valieva earlier Monday.

Valieva is a gold medal hopeful in the women's single skating which starts on Tuesday.