Paris is hosting a medal ceremony for the figure skating team event medalists after reallocation due to a doping violation. The Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) originally won gold, the US silver, and Japan bronze in the event in Beijing two years ago. Soon after those Olympics, an investigation began on then-15-year-old Kamila Valieva of the ROC as she tested positive for a banned substance two months before the Games began.
The Russian team was not present to receive their updated bronze medals.
Valieva tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine in December 2021. She was notified of the positive test after competing in the team event in Beijing where she had helped the ROC to the highest score as a team. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) had ruled at the time that she could compete for the rest of the Games, with her results being considered provisional until her case was heard.
The medal ceremony did not occur in Beijing two years ago as the IOC cited “legal issues” due to an appeal on Valieva’s participation at the Games. All athletes went without medals until today.
The CAS announced earlier this year, “Kamila Valieva is found to have committed an anti-doping rule violation and sanctioned with a four-year period of ineligibility commencing on 25 December 2021.”
With this announcement, her results were disqualified from the 2022 Olympics and the ROC lost the points that Valieva originally contributed to their score. Canada had appealed the decision on just Valieva’s point being disqualified, saying the team should be disqualified but that appeal was dismissed. The ROC, even without Valieva’s points, still scored enough for a bronze medal.
The reallocation of medals now awards the US gold, Japan silver, and the ROC bronze. This marks the first time that the US has ever won gold in the team figure skating event. The athletes received gold medals on August 7th in Champions Park in Paris.
The US team included Nathan Chen, Vincent Zhou, Karen Chen, Alexa Knierim, Brandon Frazier, Madison Chock, Evan Bates, Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue. The Japanese team in attendance included Kaori Sakamoto, Wakaba Higuchi, Yuma Kagiyama, Riku Miura, Ryuichi Kihara, Misato Komatsubara, and Tim Koleto. Shoma Uno was not in attendance.
In Paris, the 2022 USA Winter Olympics figure skating team finally receive their gold medals – denied them two and half years ago by a Russian team later found to have drugged. Japan receive the silver medals that were rightfully theirs. #Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/BSR0UInwUd
— Ian Herbert (@ianherbs) August 7, 2024
At Champions Park for the figure skating medal ceremony. pic.twitter.com/73ylK5VmZE
— Christine Brennan (@cbrennansports) August 7, 2024
Madison Hubbell says the one good thing about having to wait more than two years to get her Figure Skating team gold, is she gets to accept it in Paris, in front of a giant crowd, instead of an empty stadium. #Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/qS3juN0a2c
— Jack Doles (@jackdoles) August 7, 2024
The US figure skating team arrives at CNN. The skaters get their gold medals at 5 pm Paris time today, 2 1/2 years after the competition at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. pic.twitter.com/nfLvjSI0ky
— Christine Brennan (@cbrennansports) August 7, 2024
Now how about corrections for the East German doping in the 70s and 80s?
This is NOT a reallocation ceremony. The medals were never distributed in the first place. This is the first victory ceremony for this event – and the very *first* medals awarded to these athletes, two and a half years late! Imagine all those media opportunities the swimmers have had with their medals. These athletes had no medals at all.
In the first photo, it appears that ROC team members were there to receive their bronze medals. Is that correct? If so, I give the ROC team credit for showing up and deciding not to protest the outcome
I’m going to have to find the video. I’m assuming that the IOC stuck to the prohibition on Russian uniforms and flags at the Olympics, so that the Russian athletes had to wear generic athletic clothing and a neutral flag was hoisted in their place. Were the Russians allowed to compete under their own colors in 2022? My recollection is that they were.
Olympics.com showed and said it was the USA team and Japanese team that received the medals there.
I watched the ceremony live on TV, and the Russian athletes were not there. The athletes in the red jackets are from Japan.
No the Russian figure skaters are absolutely definitely not there. Per media: Russia is not allowed at the Paris Olympics due to the war in Ukraine, their skaters will not be allowed at the medal ceremony and will receive their bronze medals elsewhere, probably in Russia at some later date.
Too bad this didn’t happen for athletes of all countries after 23 Chinese swimmers failed drug tests
Tested positive, didn’t receive provisional suspensions while contamination claims were investigated and in some cases were not even informed they had tested positive. Nothing to see here.
Too bad this didn’t happen for athletes of all countries after multiple US athletes failed drug tests and were covered without punishment by USADA in the last decade, according by WADA
Who are all these athletes? And cite please
Same drug too.
Why is ROC getting bronze when one of their skaters has a doing violation?
Perhaps the scoring is set up so that the lowest score is dropped, so Valieva’s score gets dropped due to her disqualification and a lower score from another Russian skater is substituted. That’s why they slipped two places.
No, that’s not how it worked at all.
They just took away the points Valieva earned with her skate from the ROC team’s point total, which still put them ahead of the fourth-place team (Canada) on points. Last I heard, Canada appealed the decision… I’m not sure if they lost the appeal or if the pressure to give out these medals in Paris was so great that they just went ahead with it without resolving the appeal first. Most people involved in figure skating (me included) are uncomfortable with ROC getting the bronze, but there is at least some logic to how they reallocated the medals. Signed, a swammer and former figure skater.
Thanks for the full info. I see on Wikipedia that Valieva initially scored 10 points each for the top routines in both the short program and the free skate. This made the original team results Russia 74 points, U.S. 65 points, Japan 63 points, Canada 53 points. When Valieva was disqualified Russia lost 20 points to drop to 54, behind the U.S. and Japan, but ahead of Canada.
Interesting though that they didn’t then bump up everyone’s score in light of her disqualification. Had they done so, each nation would have received one more point in both the women’s short and free programs, and the score would be U.S. 67 points, Japan 65 points, Canada 55 points, Russia 54 points,… Read more »
Yes, that was the reason behind Canada’s appeal. It’s also why most people who follow figure skating are uncomfortable with the decision.
Canada lost the appeal. Such BS
Since the bronze medals haven’t been handed out, can this decision be overturned?
CAS denied our appeal. Should be like a relay.
It makes sense that it’s treated more like a team sport than a relay – in sports like soccer/football, rugby, baseball where substitutions can be made while a competitive event is in progress, a single positive test doesn’t disqualify the entire team, only the individual player who tested positive – but what doesn’t make sense is that the results of the women’s event weren’t re-ordered to account for the doping disqualification.
In a relay event or an individual event, when an entry is disqualified, every other entry moves up one place. That’s how the women’s event should have been treated within the team event, but instead they just dropped her points without re-ordering the results and therefore reallocating the points… Read more »
I’m not saying it should be like a relay, but the points absolutely should have been reallocated after Valieva’s disqualification.
How can heart medication possibly enhance performance in figure skating?
It helps your body use oxygen.
It was a heart medication that can improve performance.
By reducing your heart rate.
That determination was made by a team of chemists, physiologist and sports medical doctors working to make sports competitions clean and fair.
There are many many drugs that have a specific approved medical use and also have other effects for which they are not prescribed. It’s call off prescription.
For instance the new weight loss medication is a drug that was made and prescribed for diabetics. Later it was found to be effective for weight loss and other things.
The heart needs to effectively use oxygen. If someone has an cardiac issue which impairs or lessens oxygen utilization efficiency a medication may prevent a heart attack buy increasing the hearts ability to use oxygen.
This obviously would be… Read more »
TMZ is a training drug. Like EPO that runners frequently use. These drugs are used in the offseason to improve performance in training. Train harder, recover quicker and build muscle faster. TMZ and EPO are frequently used with steroids to improve building muscle. Both TMZ and EPO allow athletes to train harder to build more endurance for races. Both of of these drugs also leave the system quickly so the only way to catch athletes using TMZ or EPO is to do out of competition checks. This is what caught Valieva and the Chinese Swimmers. With the Chinese swimmers we didn’t know about these tests until the New York Times exposed it.
This is a recent youtube video about… Read more »
Speaking as a swammer and a former figure skater, the 400 free and the free skate/dance (4 minutes long, plus or minus 10 seconds at the senior elite level) feel about the same in terms of aerobic effort. Using this medication would allow a figure skater to perform more difficult elements later in their program, which confers more points. So yes, taking this medication in the absence of an actual heart condition would enhance a skater’s performance.
By dramatically increasing achievable training loads, super important in an endurance sport
must be the contaminated Australian beef!
No, her grandpa took his BP medication and cut up some strawberries she ate. She claimed the medication came from the remnants of his hands onto the strawberries.
She tried three different excuses. One of them was contamination during the Russian nationals. Valieva had some rambling anecdote about somebody’s family member gaining access even though she lacked credentials. That was supposed to indicate lack of security.
Eventually she went with the strawberry desert excuse. The basic problem there was no evidence the grandfather actually took that medication. He claimed he did. But the investigation and 100+ page report found no prescription or other supporting evidence.
But the Russians just ate contaminated food at a team meal!
And the meal was clearly from Australia, it kept calling everyone “mate”