Members of the U.S. Olympic figure skating team learned late Monday that they will receive gold medals after Russian skater Kamila Valieva was disqualified for doping from the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing.
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee received notice that the IOC would award the gold to the U.S. for the team competition, which was thrown into turmoil after Valieva’s positive test six weeks before the competition was unveiled.
The Associated Press has obtained a copy of an email sent by the IOC to the USOPC stating that it is “now able to award the medals in accordance with the rankings to be determined by the International Skating Union” – the federation responsible for organizing the event at the Olympic Games.
The USOPC confirmed that CEO Sarah Hirshland had received news that the Americans had been declared the winners.
The IOC said it had “great sympathy for the athletes who had to wait two years for the final results of their competition. The IOC will contact the relevant (national Olympic committees) to organize a dignified Olympic medal ceremony.”
The International Skating Union is controversial adjusted the outcome of the match in a way that earned Russia the bronze medal instead of Canada, which was expected to reach the podium. Rather than disqualifying the Russian team for fielding an ineligible skater, the governing body rejected all of the points Valieva earned during the event in a manner that placed the United States in first place, Japan in second place, and Russia took third place.
By not increasing the individual points accumulated by the women’s singles skaters from each team at the same time, Canada remained one point behind Russia in fourth place.
The Americans receiving the gold medals are Evan Bates, Karen Chen, Nathan Chen, Madison Chock, Zachary Donohue, Brandon Frazier, Madison Hubbell, Alexa Knierim and Vincent Zhou.
It’s been a long two years for everyone involved. Last summer, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum marked the 500-day milestone since the Olympics by displaying the empty boxes the skaters received that would have contained medals that had not been distributed in Beijing.
Over the weekend, Chock and Bates won their fifth US title and were asked about the upcoming decision.
“I think two years is too long to make this decision, and we may never know why it took so long,” Bates said. “We’re just looking forward to getting some closure after a long wait.”
There was no immediate word on where a medal ceremony might take place. The USOPC said it was working to find an appropriate time and place to award its skaters the gold. The World Speed Skating Championships are in Montreal in March.
Valieva will end up empty-handed. The ruling earlier in the day by the Court of Arbitration for Sport banned the Russian for four years, dating back to December 25, 2021 – the date of the positive test. Due to the sanction, Valieva’s results expire after that date; it will end about two months before the next Winter Games in Italy.
Russian authorities criticized the ruling.
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“We obviously do not agree with this. From my point of view, of course, it has been politicized,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
The IOC decided not to hold a medal ceremony in Beijing, where Valieva, then 15, was the star, just hours before her positive test for a banned heart drug was revealed.
The case caused legal chaos, in part because her sample was taken six weeks earlier during the Russian Championships but was not reported as a positive test until February 2022.
Multiple appeals and hearings followed, which have been going on for almost two years since the Olympics. A Russian sports tribunal had cleared Valieva of any guilt because she was a minor. The CAS has accepted appeals from the World Anti-Doping Agency, which asked the court to disqualify Valieva from the Olympics and ban her.
The judges ruled that Valieva could not receive leniency under Russian anti-doping rules because she was a minor at the time of the positive test.
There was “no basis under the rules to treat them differently than an adult athlete,” said the court, which did not publish its detailed judgment pending an investigation into confidentiality issues.
After Russia invaded Ukraine, the International Skating Federation banned Russians from international competitions. Valieva, who turns 18 in April, has skated on an extensive Russian national circuit and competed in TV events and ice shows. But she was defeated twice by younger Russians from the training group of her coach, Eteri Tutberidze.