The Winter Olympic Virus, Day 6, Part One: Here we go... Figure-skating competition go boom in 3... 2... 1...

• Figure-skating:  It's Russia, it's a drug positive, trimetazidine.  That's basically what people have been able to piece together.
• Now, what we don't know yet is if there's a therapeutic use situation (whether one is even possible for this situation) or what.  There's also the point that this was a positive from back in December, which would open the door to "What else don't we know about??"
• It's a heart-condition medication, was found in minimal amounts, but is on the banned list. 
• And the latest report is that it is one of the Russian girl favorites to sweep the medal stand.  Inside the Games is exclusively reporting it's Kamila Valieva.  One Tweeter said it was basically breathtaking to see a skater so far ahead of the field, the competition never really should've been held. 
• Do we now know why?  The concept appears to be that certain drugs, of which I am not sure trimetazidine is one, actually act to block puberty hormones in girls so that, instead of a 15 year-old girl, you basically have someone 15 in muscle, 10-12 or so in body and that it aids in leaping and spinning and all that kind of stuff.
• And here's the saddest thing:  If it's Valieva, the only way we know is if she either does not compete in the women's figure skating later in the Games, and/or wins it (she is the runaway gold-medal favorite) and is later stripped.  Since she's not 16, she cannot be directly named.  This has the potential to literally blow up the entire figure-skating competition!   
• She is such the runaway favorite that many judges, even though Valieva has not even started as a full competitive skater for but a short time, are basically anointing her "Miss Perfect" and the Greatest of All Time!  In the team competition, she won the five-skater free skate by over THIRTY POINTS.
• Any personal sanction would probably be quite small due to her age.  However, given that the Russians have already been busted once for a state-sponsored doping policy to rig a Winter Games...
• So how does anybody, realizing that Valieva cannot have made her own decision (too young to -- and probably has been on these medications literally since as young as one dares administer (she became the second woman ever to successfully complete a quad toe loop in women's competition -- as a 13-year (and not even 4-month) old JUNIOR competitor) them for these and the Italian Games in four years), not come to the conclusion this is straight out of the USSR/Putin-Sochi playbook, with the appropriate sanction?  
• The situation was completely sidestepped in an 11 AM press conference, at least five minutes of questions attempted to IOC spokesperson Mark Adams.
• Valieva, as of about Noon Beijing time, is still scheduled to practice today for next week's women's event.
• There were 2,500 viewers of the live YouTube stream of the press conference when it started -- after the figure-skating stuff was no-commented away, 80% of that audience left!

Medal Count entering Day 6, pending all this:

• Germany now heads the table.with five golds.
• The illegal Russian team heads the total with 11.
• USA is tenth on the table and sixth in total.  1-5-1 for 7.
• Nineteen nations have gold medals, 23 have medaled.
• 33 of the 109 events have been completed.
• Eight medal events today, including two major chances for gold for the USA -- Nathan Chen leads the men's figure skating, and Chloe Kim is the wide favorite for the women's halfpipe snowboarding.