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A week or two ago, two-time world champions Tatiana Navka and Roman Kostomarov of Russia were the favourites to win the ice-dancing event at the Turin Winter Olympics.
However, their trip to the Games hangs in the balance now because Navka did not submit to a doping test last Friday after the European figure skating championships in Lyon, France.
The International Skating Union is investigating the case, and the World Anti-Doping Agency is monitoring it.
WADA spokesman Frédéric Donzé said yesterday from Montreal that the doping agency is aware of the case, but does not have enough information to comment on it. He noted that WADA policy calls for a two-year suspension for a first offence for an athlete who refuses or fails to submit to a drug test.
"The case doesn't exist at the moment for us because we need to see what the ISU does first before we do anything," he said.
Navka and Kostomarov won the European title last week, but in the final lift, Navka cut her right hand while grasping for her skate blade. She wrapped the hand in a handkerchief when she stepped off the ice.
Later, according to the French sports daily L'Équipe, Navka repeatedly told the doping chaperone that Kostomarov would do the test instead because she had to go to the hospital to deal with the cut on her hand.
ISU rules state the top four finishers at its championships must submit to drug testing. And in the case of ice dancing, either the man or the woman -- but not both -- are subject to the test and are determined by random draw.
L'Équipe reported that Navka was chosen by random draw and signed the acknowledgement of notification. But because she signed it with her injured right hand, she did not make an impression through the carbon paper onto other copies, including the pink copy that Navka would keep.
The volunteer told the ISU medical adviser, Ruben Ambartsumov of Ukraine, that she was reluctant to give the pink copy to Navka because it had no visible signature. According to L'Équipe, Ambartsumov spoke in Russian to Navka, did not examine her injury and let her go.
"It's not a grave problem," he told the chaperone and said he would keep the unsigned document.
The next day, she was given nine stitches, but a doctor was quoted as saying her injury was not an "absolute emergency."
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