Tag: cleared

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Stunning backflip as Russian teen cleared to compete

Aussie sledder Breeana Walker was rapt after finishing fifth at her first Olympics event, the women’s monobob discipline in Beijing.

Walker was previously a champion 400-metre hurdler, but injuries cruelled that career and she turned to the snow instead.

She was considered a medal chance in Beijing, but was happy with her performance despite no podium finish.

“I wanted to show people back at home and even people around the world that if you want something bad enough, you have just got to go out there and make it happen,” Walker told Channel 7.

“How hard has it been? It’s been hard but it is all worth it. I think back to four years ago, I was on the sidelines at the Olympics. And to be here and be fifth at the Olympics, at my first Olympic Games, my first highlight event where I’m actually a proper competitor, challenging the girls out there who I watched four years ago, like it is amazing. It is all worth the hard work and effort.

“I wanted to be standing here at these Olympics representing Australia, being a competitor, not just a participant. And I think I’ve kept that promise to myself, and I’m over the moon.”

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Olympics Live Updates: Valieva Is Cleared to Compete in Figure Skating

Kamila Valieva will be allowed to skate in the women’s singles event this week.
ImageKamila Valieva training in Beijing on Sunday. She helped Russia win the figure skating team competition last week.
Credit…Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times

The Russian figure skating star at the center of doping questions at the Beijing Olympics will be allowed to compete in the women’s singles event after a ruling by arbitrators on Monday.

The panel, in a statement, said it would be unfair and cause “irreparable harm” if she were barred from the competition, despite having tested positive for a banned substance in December. That revelation came last week, a day after she had helped lead Russia to a gold medal in the team event.

The skater, Kamila Valieva, 15, has become a face of the Games and is widely seen as the favorite to win the women’s event that begins on Tuesday. The ruling on Monday means she can take to the ice when the short program begins, though questions will surely hang over her performance and the Russian team.

In making the decision, the panel’s statement said, it “considered fundamental principles of fairness, proportionality, irreparable harm and the balance of interests” between Valieva and the organizations seeking to bar her from the Games. Also, it noted, Valieva did not test positive at the Beijing Games, but could face possible penalties when her case is examined after the Olympics.

The case was heard by a panel assigned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, considered the highest legal authority in global sports. Matthieu Reeb, the director general of the court, announced the ruling at a news conference on Monday, less than 30 hours before the women’s event was to begin, but walked off without taking any questions.

The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee quickly issued a statement expressing its disappointment in the ruling. Sarah Hirshland, the committee’s chief executive, said that clean athletes are being denied “the right to know they are competing on a level playing field.”

“We are disappointed by the messages this sends,” Sarah Hirshland, the chief executive of the committee. said in a statement, adding, “This appears to be another chapter in the systemic and pervasive disregard for clean sport by Russia.”

The panel on Monday, however, did not decide whether Valieva was guilty of knowingly using a banned drug. It only decided it was within the discretion of Russia’s antidoping agency to lift a brief suspension of her that it had imposed last week after learning she had tested positive weeks ago for a banned drug. That disclosure came the day after the team event.

In the ruling, the arbitrators rejected appeals by the International Olympic Committee, the World Anti-Doping Agency and skating’s global governing body to reinstate a provisional suspension that would have ruled Valieva out of the Olympics.

The court did not consider whether Valieva was at fault for testing positive for trimetazidine, a heart medication that could increase endurance. Her positive result came from a urine sample that was taken from her at the Russian national championships on Dec. 25 but was not confirmed for about six weeks. The panel that met on Saturday and Sunday in Beijing upheld the Russian antidoping agency’s decision to suspend Valieva for only one day last week before quickly reinstating her.

The Russian antidoping agency said it had received notice from a Stockholm lab of Valieva’s failed drug test only on Feb. 7, the same day that she led the Russians to a gold medal in the team event. The medals for that competition have not been awarded.

The International Olympic Committee, the World Anti-Doping Agency and the International Skating Union had filed an appeal with the court last week, seeking to reinstate the suspension, which would most likely have prevented Valieva from competing in Beijing.

“This is a very complicated and controversial situation,” her coach, Eteri Tutberidze, told Russia’s state-run TV network Channel One on Saturday in her first public comments about the case. “There are many questions and very few answers.”

Despite those unknowns, Tutberidze quickly added, “I wanted to say that we are absolutely confident that Kamila is innocent and clean.”

The legal battle over Valieva’s future eligibility is likely to last for weeks, at least. The fate of the Olympic gold medal in the team event also hangs in the balance.

In last week’s free skate in the team competition, Valieva became the first woman to land a quadruple jump. Her performance led the Russians to win the team event, their best showing ever. The United States won the silver medal, and Japan won bronze.

— Juliet Macur and Andrew Keh

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Hatfield’s Black Birch Winery cleared to continue large-scale events

Hatfield’s Black Birch Winery cleared to continue large-scale events

Published: 2/8/2022 9:00:48 PM

Modified: 2/8/2022 8:59:07 PM

HATFIELD — After two seasons of concerts and similar large-scale events bringing visitors to Black Birch Winery, the business is having its site plan revised to be in compliance with town rules when performances resume this year.

The Planning Board this month unanimously approved the amended site plan for the 108 Straits Road property that will extend Black Birch’s hours from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and allow the winery to accommodate 12 large events per year, each of which draws between 150 and 300 people. An unlimited number of smaller events that are capped at 90 people also will be permitted.

“It will offer us flexibility in what we do and what we offer,” co-owner Michelle Kersbergen told planners at the board’s Feb. 2 meeting. She added that, in addition to the concerts, there will be an additional one or two events per week, mostly workshops, wine dinners and other smaller-scale functions.

That came in response to Planning Board member Jimmy Tarr noting his worry about giving Black Birch permission to have events throughout the year. “That gives me a little bit of a pause — theoretically you could have an event there every single day,” Tarr said.

The board’s decision revises the original special permit issued to Black Birch when it came to Hatfield in 2017. The business will continue to have hours of operation for its tasting room for noon to 6 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, and noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays., as well as on holidays, as appropriate.

The amended site plan follows from the Select Board issuing an entertainment license to Black Birch last June that allowed concerts, put together by Signature Sounds, to be held from noon to 9 p.m.

Kersbergen said that Signature Sounds, as it schedules concerts this year, will cap tickets at 250.

The main focus for the business, she said, remains educating people about the winery through tours and samples, and Kersbergen said there is no intention to expand the tasting room.

“We’re not there after 6 because I don’t want to be a bar, I don’t want to have the mentality of being a bar,” Kersbergen said.

Meanwhile, a 1.8-megawatt alternating current solar project, with an associated 1.65-megawatt battery, is being proposed for an 8- to 9-acre portion of a 30 acre Routes 5 & 10 parcel.

The wooded site, with an address of 121 West St. and situated between Rocks Road to the north and Chestnut Street to the south, features a small single-family home that would be demolished to make way for the project.

Vegetation would be cleared from where the solar is built on the parcel, which is zoned as light industrial at the front of the property and rural residential at the rear.

“This could be the extent of the development,” consultant Russ Burke told the board.

Board member Bob Wagner said “front-loading makes a lot of sense,” noting that it would be more challenging to have the solar extend to the rear of the site, which features fragile land and a wildlife area as the grade changes and there are rocky outposts.

Wagner noted that the property is likely to be developed in the future with the ongoing extension of water and sewer lines along the state highway.

Burke said he anticipates filing plans for the project by early March and scheduling a hearing in April.