A three-man Panel at CAS, chaired by British-based barrister James Drake, began hearing Valieva’s case in the Swiss city but Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) President Stanislav Pozdnyakov has already declared that he believes the odds are stacked against the teenager, who was only 15 at the time of the positive test and therefore a "protected person", of being cleared.

"The sports justice system is undergoing negative changes," Pozdnyakov told Russia’s official state news agency TASS.

"From my point of view, one can count less and less on the fairness of CAS."

Valieva tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine at the Russian National Championships on December 25 in 2021 but the result was only made known on February 8 when insidethegames exclusively revealed the news a day after she helped the ROC win the team event at Beijing 2022.

In January, the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) Disciplinary Committee effectively cleared Valieva of a serious doping offence.

They found her guilty of violating anti-doping rules, but found intent in her actions, ruling the banned drug had entered the body through no fault of hers and stripped her only of the Russian title.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the International Skating Union (ISU) and RUSADA have all appealed that decision.

If CAS find that Valieva was guilty, it will almost certainly lead to the ROC being stripped of the gold medals they won at Beijing 2022, meaning that silver medallists the United States would step up to first place.

Japan would be promoted to the silver medal and Canada will move from fourth to bronze.

The CAS has scheduled three days for the hearing, which is due to conclude on Thursday (September 28), although Friday (September 29) has been set aside should it be required.

Valieva, who has not competed internationally since Beijing 2022 due to Russia being banned following the invasion of Ukraine, will not be attending the hearing in person but is due to give her evidence from Moscow via video-link.

Whatever the CAS panel decides it could be months before such a ruling is issued and all the parties will still have the right to appeal to the Swiss Court of Tribunal, leaving the possibility of many months before a final decision is reached.

It has led to Vincent Zhou, a member of the US team at Beijing 2022, claiming the anti-doping system is "failing athletes".

Zhou and his team-mates are still waiting to receive the medals they won the Chinese capital, and he claimed that when the awards ceremony for the team event eventually takes place it will be "a symbol of the gross failures" of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), CAS and RUSADA.

"As my team's empty medal boxes show, the global anti-doping system is failing athletes," Zhou said.

"While there are significant economic costs associated with not receiving an Olympic medal - sponsors love medals - the real harm has come from the way the 'situation' has been handled by sport administrators.

"In the 19 months since we took the ice in Beijing, my team-mates and I have heard almost nothing from the officials handling the case, and we have no reason to believe that our interests are being adequately represented."

Even though RUSADA is among the parties appealing against Valieva being cleared, Zhou has accused the organisation of being involved in state-sponsored doping in Russia.

"The idea that such a hearing will serve the interests of clean athletes is absurd - the Russian ‘Anti-Doping’ Agency has been facilitating Russian doping for over a decade," he said.

"The IOC, for its part, has repeatedly refused to hold Russia accountable for a state-sponsored doping programme involving more than 1,000 athletes."

There have been calls in Russia for the Figure Skating Federation of Russia and Valieva’s team-mates at Beijing 2022 to launch legal action against Zhou.

"He deliberately creates intrigue in order to catch on and take something away from Russian figure skaters," Dmitry Svishchev, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Physical Culture and Sports, told TASS.

"He decided to support a negative trend that has nothing to do with sports.

"We wish him to train more and show skill on the ice, and not engage in verbiage and chatter.

"If I were our skaters and RUSADA, I would appreciate the opportunity to sue him and sue him."

A request by Zhou and his team-mates to be allowed to attend the hearing this week in Lausanne as observers was turned down by CAS.

"We asked to be allowed to observe the upcoming hearing," he said.

"In response, we were told that CAS hearings are confidential - closed even to those of us directly affected by the proceedings.

"We were told that either of the involved parties could request a public hearing, but that neither did.

"For that reason, the proceedings will happen behind closed doors."

Zhou claimed that they should have been permitted to attend the appeal where Drake will be joined on the panel by American Jeffrey Mishkin, nominated by the ISU and WADA, and Frenchman Mathieu Maisonneuve, chosen by Valieva. 

"An open and transparent hearing would go a long way towards helping athletes understand any decision that is rendered," he said.

"Transparency would build confidence in a global anti-doping system that has lost the trust of its most important stakeholders: athletes.

"In contrast, asking the parties themselves to decide whether the hearing will be public is akin to asking them whether their actions should be scrutinised by outsiders.

"Unsurprisingly, they chose to act with impunity and to avoid public accountability."

Earlier this month, United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee chief executive Sara Hirshland claimed she understood the frustrations of Zhou and his team-mates.

"I think the most difficult thing is [that] the complexity of the [Valieva case] is significant and very real," she said on a media call.

"Who has authority to make what decisions and by what processes?

"There are a lot of acronym organisations who have a role to play in this, and it is cumbersome and clunky."

WADA, though, claimed they are motivated by a desire to ensure that justice is done for the athletes who finished behind the ROC at Beijing 2022.

They told insidethegames that they would have had no objection to a member of the US skating team having had a representative at the hearing but it was not within their power to do so.

"WADA has taken this appeal to CAS in the interests of fairness for athletes and clean sport," WADA spokesman James Fitzgerald told insidethegames.

"Put simply, we consider the finding by the disciplinary tribunal of RUSADA that the athlete bore 'no fault or negligence' to be wrong under the terms of the World Anti-Doping Code.

"We want a just outcome of the case, based on the facts. 

"To that end, we are seeking a four-year period of ineligibility and disqualification of all the athlete’s results from the date of the sample collection on 25 December 2021, including all her results during the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing.

"WADA will continue to push for this matter to be concluded without further undue delay."