A Russian athlete who has tested positive for a banned substance at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics had recently appeared in an Instagram video wearing an “I Don’t Do Doping” sweatshirt.
Nadezhda Sergeeva was the pilot of the bobsleigh team that finished 12th in Pyeongchang, and her positive test result was announced on Friday morning.
In a now deleted video posted to the social network on 15 February by filmmaker Roman Bibishev, Sergeeva features in several scenes wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with: “I don’t do doping, I am ZASPORT.”
Zasport is the official clothes supplier to the Russian Olympic Committee, and provided the neutral designs worn by Russian athletes at this year’s Games. Russia have been banned by the IOC from appearing as a team due to doping offences, and so athletes are not allowed to wear national symbols at the Games.
The substance that triggered Sergeeva’s positive result at the Olympics was trimetazdine, a medication used for angina sufferers. Sergeeva has denied taking the drug, with the Russian Bobsled Federation president Alexander Zubkov stating: “She confirms she took no such medication and the team confirms she was not issued any medication.”
Zubkov won gold medals in the two-man and four-man bobsleigh at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Both medals were disqualified by the IOC in November 2017.
The disclosure of another positive doping test result came 24 hours after Russian curler Alexander Krushelnitsky was stripped of an Olympic bronze medal.