PARIS (AP) — A touch of winter came to the Summer Games on Wednesday when the United States figure skating team finally got their gold medals as 2022 Olympic champions.
The special medal ceremony allowed the nine Americans to parade on a runway in the bright Paris sunshine, gaze at the Eiffel Tower and bask in warm cheers from the fans packed into the stands at Champions Park.
Exactly 2½ years after the figure skating team event ended at the Beijing Olympics — and the doping saga of the winning Russian team started — the Americans got the medals that weren’t awarded at the time.
“I think it absolutely was worth the wait. Definitely,” said Karen Chen, wearing the first gold medal of her career around her neck.
All nine American skaters came to Paris, including Evan Bates, Nathan Chen, Madison Chock, Zachary Donohue, Brandon Frazier, Madison Hubbell, Alexa Knierim and Vincent Zhou. Seven of the eight members of the Japan team came to get their silver medals — an upgrade from their third-place result in Beijing.
The athletes were honored with a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” not the Tchaikovsky piano piece that would have been played for the Russians in Beijing. The ceremony in France was watched by family, friends and fans. Not in a near-empty indoor ice arena in China during an Olympics staged through a COVID-19 lockdown.
“It is very memorable for all of us to be here and to get our medals,” Karen Chen said, “to just see the crowds, see everything and embrace it all.”
Knierim, who skated with Frazier in pairs, had her fingernails painted golden.
“I thought it was perfect for the occasion,” she said of a ceremony confirmed only two weeks ago.
A Russian appeal trying to win back the Olympic team title was dismissed at the Court of Arbitration for Sport just before the Paris Games opened. The title had been stripped in January when a different CAS panel disqualified Russian teenager Kamila Valieva for doping with a banned heart medication. She also was banned for four years.
No Russian skaters are getting medals in the French capital, although their third-place finish was confirmed during the Paris Olympics in yet another CAS ruling. The Russian Olympic Committee has been formally suspended from the games but 15 individuals are competing as neutral athletes after vetting.
Canada’s skaters lost their appeal last Friday to have their points tally upgraded from fourth place by the International Skating Union.
“My heart goes out to them,” said Zhou, one of the new Olympic champions.
The unusual setting for a Winter Games medal ceremony had more unusual features: no podium, no bronze medalists and no flagpoles. An American flag was shown on a big screen.
Still, Bates said, Paris had been spoken of as “the dream scenario” to get medals when the U.S. left Beijing without any. It had been his fourth Olympics and it is his first medal.
“I don’t know what it feels like (to get a medal at the Winter Games) but this feels pretty good,” said Bates, who skated ice dance with Chock.
The longtime on-ice partners got married in June.
“We grew up dreaming of this — but not in 90-degree weather,” Bates said in the shade, before Chock quipped: “We’re not built for this heat.”
Theirs was the first of several Olympic results amended by doping cases that will have the rightful medals presented at Champions Park. On Friday, 10 athletes are set to be presented with their upgraded medals, including two American champions from the 2012 London Olympics who originally got silver medals behind Russians later shown to be doped.
Lashinda Demus will be get her gold medal as the Olympic champion in the women’s 400-meter hurdles and Erik Kynard in men’s high jump.
“Today is a victory for clean athletes everywhere,” Chock said. “Some athletes have to wait much longer than 2½ years.”
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