The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has criticised the Court of Arbitration for Sport's decision to allow Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva to continue competing at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
CAS have rejected an appeal against Valieva being permitted to compete despite testing positive for a banned substance on Christmas Day - an issue which only publicly came to light last week.
The 15-year-old is now due to take part in the women's individual figure skating competition this week, where she is heavy favourite to take gold.
However, WADA have joined the critics of the CAS decision not to restore the provisional suspension.
"It appears that the Cas panel decided not to apply the terms of the (anti-doping) code, which does not allow for specific exceptions to be made in relation to mandatory provisional suspensions for 'protected persons', including minors," it said in a statement.
"The sample in this case was not flagged by Rusada (Russian Anti-Doping Agency) as being a priority sample when it was received by the anti-doping laboratory in Stockholm, Sweden. This meant the laboratory did not know to fast-track the analysis of this sample."
Global Athlete - an organisation that represents Olympians - claims that Valieva has been failed by the anti-doping system over the positive test.
"Today is another example of the failures of the global sport and anti-doping system," it said in a statement.
"The fact that Kamila Valieva, a 15-year-old Russian figure skater, has been found to have a performance-enhancing substance in her system is evidence of abuse of a minor. Sport should be protecting its athletes, not damaging them.
"Doping and the trauma of a positive test pose grave physical and psychological risks to all athletes but especially to minors. It is unacceptable that these risks have been placed on a 15-year-old."
While the CAS decision has widely been criticised, members of the Russian camp have applauded the call to allow Valieva to continue.
"I'm very happy for Valieva and glad that common sense and justice triumphed," said Russian Figure Skating Federation president Alexander Gorshkov.
The Russian Olympic Committee added: "We do not know how many tears and what moral strength this whole crazy situation has cost Kamila.
"But what we know for sure and what we can definitely do is cheer for her tomorrow, then on Thursday with all the strength of our energy."
Valieva has already helped the ROC to gold in the team event, although the IOC have confirmed that there will be no medal ceremony should the 15-year-old finish on the podium in the individual event. body check tags ::
