Why Team USA Figure Skaters Received Gold Medals at the Paris Summer Olympics

TThe temperature in Paris was close to 80ºF, but it felt still hotter under the scorching sun during the Olympic medal ceremony on Wednesday at Champions Park under the Eiffel Tower in Paris. And instead of Olympians who recently won medals in summer sports like swimming, gymnastics and fencing at the 2024 Games, the first athletes honored were… figure skaters.

Figure skaters from Team USA and Team Japan at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics finally received their medals in Paris, two and a half years after competing. In Beijing, the Russians – competing as the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) due to the country’s ongoing ban on doping efforts – finished first in the team event, followed by the US and Japan. But a positive drug test for a banned substance made by one of the event’s female skaters, Kamila Valieva, put the final classification in doubt. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to postpone the awarding of any medals and the skaters left Beijing without knowing the result of the team event.

It was not until January 2024 that the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), an independent review body that investigated the circumstances surrounding Valieva’s positive sample, ruled that her scores should be eliminated from the team event as well as the women’s event. where she also competed and finished fourth. In the team event, this led the USA to gold and Japan to silver, while Russia fell to bronze. Russian skaters did not participate in the ceremony in Paris.

“As soon as we left Beijing, they asked our team: what is your dream scenario? We said we wanted to be in Paris and we wanted to win the gold medal, and that’s exactly what happened,” says Evan Bates, who with his now-wife Madison Chock was one of two ice dance teams that competed in the team event.

The group also decided that if not all of them – Bates, Chock, Karen Chen, Nathan Chen, Zachary Donohue, Brandon Frazier, Madison Hubbell, Alexa Knierim and Vincent Zhou – could attend the medal ceremony, they would not come to Paris. “If we’re not all going to be there, then we don’t want to have [the ceremony] still,” said Nathan Chen, who also won gold in the men’s event, about the team’s desire to receive the medals together.

“Normally there is turnover in terms of members between Olympic cycles, but our team competed together in one or two Olympic cycles,” said Zhou, who developed COVID-19 after skating in the team event and was unable to compete in the men’s event. “So for four to eight years, we all grew up together, we all experienced the same struggles, competition after competition, and Olympics after Olympics. Going through all this and arriving with this result is incredible for all of us.”

Life is very different for most of them and competitive skating is no longer a part of their lives. Only Chock and Bates, who got married in June, continue training, aiming to compete in the 2026 Games in Milan and Cortina. Karen Chen, who competed in the women’s event, is back in college at Cornell University, expecting to graduate in 2025. Nathan Chen graduated from Yale and plans to attend medical school. Hubbell, who with partner Donohue won bronze in the ice dancing event in Beijing, married Spanish ice dancer Adrian Diaz in 2023. couple welcomed a baby, Chloe, earlier this year — and Hubbell she brought her daughter with her to attend the medal ceremony in Paris. Donohue also married an ice dancer and now works as a choreographer. Zhou ended his internship at a financial services company in New York early so he could attend the ceremony in Paris, and will return to finish his senior year at Brown University in the fall. Education is also a top priority for Frazier, who is pursuing a business degree while coaching pairs skating in California.

The delay, however, is bittersweet, especially given the uncertainty skaters have experienced over the past two and a half years. “I often thought that the idea of ​​coming to Paris was just something to fill our hearts with hope,” Knierim said. “I really didn’t think it would happen. It was a disappointment to have to live through the whirlwind of uncertainty. So, in that respect, it was not ideal. I’m glad we were able to have this moment, but nothing could have replaced the Beijing moment in our [Olympic] Village, with our Olympic equipment, and at that moment with enthusiasm and emotion. The pain we endured over these two and a half years will always be present.”

Nathan Chen, who also won gold in the men’s event and received the medal in Beijing, agreed, noting “there are pros and cons” to the medal ceremony in Paris. “Beijing – these are our Olympics, this is where we belong and this is where we compete. So there’s definitely sentimental value to it – this is amazing and so beautiful, but it’s not Beijing. But at the same time, we are at the base of the Eiffel Tower. Like, how cool is that? It’s definitely a unique experience. But it’s apples and oranges” comparing the two, he said.

One advantage of the Paris ceremony, in addition to the iconic location: the skaters received their medals in front of family and friends, who were unable to be in Beijing due to strict COVID-19 policies that banned spectators.

In some ways, the postponement of the ceremony provides critical and timely leverage on an issue that continues to plague all major sporting events, including the Olympic Games: doping. The reason the U.S. and Japanese teams waited so long for their medals was due to Valieva’s violation involving trimetazidine (TMZ), a heart medication approved in some countries but not the U.S. that can improve blood flow and , therefore, potentially helping athletes in training. The Russian Anti-Doping Agency concluded that Valieva’s positive test, which occurred at the Russian national championships, was due to contamination with her grandfather’s medication and, after a provisional suspension, allowed her to compete at the Beijing Olympic Games.

TMZ is again a problem in Paris, as investigations have revealed that nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers, some of whom competed in Paris, tested positive for TMZ ahead of the Tokyo Olympics. Games, but were not sanctioned by China’s anti-doping agency. Chinese authorities also determined that the positive samples resulted from contamination of food the swimmers ate while staying in a hotel.

“Ultimately, as athletes, clean sport is essential to compete here [at the Olympics] and really, it defeats the purpose of competing if there is not a clean and level playing field,” said Nathan Chen. Revising the classification of the team figure skating event, he said, “is a precedent. “At least we now know that, given the situation, this was the outcome.”