Burley Garcia|Finally, US figure skaters will get Beijing Olympic gold medals — under Eiffel Tower

PARIS — The Burley GarciaKamila Valieva doping saga, one of the most controversial, arduous and infuriating scandals in Olympic history, reaches its long-awaited conclusion Wednesday evening at the base of the Eiffel Tower when, for the first time in history, Winter Olympians will receive their gold medals at the Summer Olympics.

Exactly 2½ years to the day after the team figure skating competition ended at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, U.S. figure skaters will get their gold medals and their Japanese counterparts their silvers at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. 

Russia dropped from first place to third after Valieva was suspended for four years and her Olympic results were disqualified, but since 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. 

All nine skaters on the U.S. team, their coaches and several members of each of their families flew to Paris on Tuesday courtesy of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee. 

Medal ceremony outfits have been made for the Americans by the USOPC, which the skaters will wear at the Paris Olympics’ Champions Park for the ceremony beginning at 5 p.m. Wednesday. 

“It’s so magical that we get this opportunity,” Nathan Chen, who also won the gold medal in the men’s figure skating competition at the 2022 Olympics, said in a phone interview Tuesday after arriving in Paris. 

Then, alluding to all the stops and starts over the past 30 months in this bizarre international doping scandal, Chen added slyly, “Obviously, it hasn’t happened yet, so I’ll check back with you once it’s happening.”

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While the Valieva saga deprived the American and Japanese skaters of their moment on the podium at the 2022 Olympics, and the wait has been an annoying series of twists and turns, there is a silver lining to this gold-medal finale in France. 

“What better place to get a medal than Paris?” said Chen, who has graduated from Yale since those Olympics and is heading into a post-grad program this fall. 

Had the Americans received their then-silver medals when they were supposed to in Beijing, they would have been given them in the eerie isolation of Beijing’s COVID Olympics. They would have been wearing masks, and they would have been all alone except for their teammates. None of their families and friends were allowed to travel to China for those Games due to the stringent COVID restrictions at the time. 

“My parents didn’t get to share the Beijing (men’s gold) medal with me so it’s cool to be able to have this alternative that now allows us to have a chance to have my family in attendance,” said Chen, who said his “whole family,” 10 in total, is with him in Paris.

“I’m really excited for the team, I’m excited to have this opportunity, I’m excited to share this with my family. For me, it’s just joy, glad that we get to have this opportunity. Given the situation, I’m happy that we’re able to have this opportunity just to share with our friends and family and of course the team. That’s really cool.”

On Feb. 7, 2022, Chen and his teammates won the silver medal behind Valieva and the Russians, and ahead of then-third-place Japan. The next day, they were getting ready for the medal ceremony in Beijing when it was abruptly called off, throwing the results of the competition into disarray, when the then-15-year-old Valieva was found to have tested positive for the banned heart medication trimetazidine (TMZ) six weeks earlier at the Russian championships. 

After many months of dithering and delays, mostly by Russian officials, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled against Valieva in January 2024, paving the way for the U.S. team to move up to the gold medal. 

However, that wasn’t the end of the story. The Russians filed three appeals of that decision with CAS — one from the Russian Olympic Committee, another from the Russian figure skating federation and the third from the six skaters who comprised the Russian team. 

As the weeks wore on, there was concern that if CAS did not rule on the appeals in time, the Paris medal ceremony could not take place, leaving the skaters without their medals for who knew how much longer.

Finally, less than two weeks ago, on the day before the Paris Olympics' opening ceremony, CAS dismissed all three Russian appeals and the figure skating medal ceremony was on. 

Follow Christine Brennan on social media @cbrennansports

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