Olympic curling medalist Alexander Krushelnitsky isn’t winning today. Instead he’s on a plane home to Russia.
The Russian athlete has been charged with a doping offense by the Court of Arbitration for the Sport after testing positive for meldonium, a banned substance that increases blood flow and improves exercise capacity. The 25-year-old is now likely to be stripped of the bronze medal, won with his wife Anastasia Bryzgalova last week at the 2018 Winter Olympics PyeongChang, South Korea, CBS reported on Monday, February 19.
“We were all shocked when we found out,” Russian curler Viktoria Moiseeva told The Telegraph. “Of course we very much hope it was some kind of mistake. With us, it’s not faster, higher, stronger; it’s about being more accurate. I can’t imagine what kind of drugs you could use in curling so it’s very hard to believe.”
The Court of Arbitration for Sports has formally charged Krushelnitsky pending a hearing and Russia’s curling federation have launched an internal investigation, per the Telegraph.
“I hope it’s not true for the sport of curling,” Norwegian curler Thomas Ulsrud told the paper. “If it’s true, I feel really sad for the Norwegian team who worked really hard, ended up in fourth place and just left for Norway and they aren’t even here.”
Russian curling federation president Dmitry Svishchev said the Russian curlers were tested on January 22 ahead of flying out for the Winter Games, and the results were negative. “I have known these guys for many years,” he told The Guardian. “Only a crazy person takes banned substances before a competition, before the Olympics. It’s a strange story. It raises a lot of questions.”