As the 2018 Winter Olympics barrels toward its Closing Ceremony and the International Olympic Committee weighs whether to retroactively recognize the country it banned from Pyeongchang, a second Russian athlete has failed a drug test.
Just a day after one of the country's curlers agreed to surrender a bronze medal after testing positive for a performance-enhancing substance, Reuters reports that Nadezhda Sergeeva, a member of Russia's bobsledding team, was found to have used a banned heart drug -- one that Russia's bobsleigh federation has already said it "did not prescribe" to the athlete.
This is the same Sergeeva who rocked a "I Don't Do Doping" sweatshirt in a promotional Olympics video.
Federation president Alexander Zubkov, who once had two of his own medals taken away as punishment for Russia's alleged state-backed doping program at the 2014 Sochi Games, told the Associated Press that Sergeeva passed a drug test just five days before her results came back unclean, that the bobsledder claims she "took no such medication" and that the federation is preparing a defense of any sanctions against Sergeeva.
And yet contrasting comments have also come from Russian delegation leader Stanislav Pozdnyakov, who told local outlets, per the AP, that "this case speaks to negligence by the athlete" and that Sergeeva, a 30-year-old World Championships standout, "let us down."
Had Sergeeva actually won a medal for her efforts on the bobsled team, she would not have aided Russia's official medal count anyway. Even the bronze that was forfeited earlier in the week by Alexander Krushelnitsky, whose mixed doubles curling medal was passed to Norway, would only have been attributed to the Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR), a name given to the neutral contingent of Russian athletes who received "special dispensation" to participate in South Korea.
Russia's initial ban from Pyeongchang, handed down in December, came after a years-long investigation into a widespread doping scheme that reportedly allowed hundreds of different athletes to use illegal substances, including performance-enhancing drugs, at the 2014 Olympics.
