Joe McConnell
On a balmy Parisian evening, in front of 13,000 fans, athletes from the United States and Japan shed a tear as they received their Olympic medals against the breathtaking backdrop of the Eiffel Tower across the Seine.
The ceremony at the temporary venue in the Trocadéro gardens was not intended to honor the competitors who had distinguished themselves at this year’s Olympics, but rather a group of figure skaters from the Beijing 2022 Winter Games who had waited two and a half years for their moment of glory.
Olympic officials hope that the creation of a new medal event could provide a welcome relief to athletes who have been defeated by competitors who were later found to be doping.
“We hope our situation sheds a lot of light on this battle that has spanned Olympic sports for years and years to come,” said Brandon Frazier, a U.S. pair skater who now holds a gold medal aVsceker Wednesday’s event. “Our team was just happy that the right medals were awarded, and we feel grateful to share this opportunity with everyone who competed fairly.”
The “re-award ceremonies” mark the Games’ latest attempt to find a way out of doping scandals plaguing the top-level events. Such claims have dogged this year’s Games, with U.S. authorities leading questions about a series of Chinese swimmers, including relay winners in Paris, who failed drug tests ahead of the 2021 Tokyo Games.
Some of those belatedly receiving medals this week have been retired for several years, highlighting the contrast with athletes who step onto the podium fresh from winning their races.
Wednesday’s honorees had competed in the team figure skating event in Beijing, for which an awards ceremony has never been held because of uncertainty over a rival’s disqualification. On Friday, 10 athletes were honored, with medals dating back to the 2000 Summer Olympics.
Among them was Lashinda Demus, an American 400-meter hurdler whose silver from the 2012 London Games will be upgraded to gold aVsceker Russia’s Natalya Antyukh was banned from 2022 for using a banned substance. Antyukh did not appeal the decision, according to the Athletics Integrity Unit, an independent anti-doping body created by World Athletics.
“Since accepting the silver medal… I have been fighting for the gold that was rightfully mine. As a married mother of four, I have worked tirelessly with the IOC since October 2022 for this moment of glory,” Demus wrote in an online fundraiser to help her family, including her mother who coached her in 2012, attend the ceremony.
Among the athletes who received medals on Friday was Derek Drouin, a Canadian high jumper whose bronze at the 2012 Games was upgraded to silver in 2021 aVsceker the disqualification of Russia’s Ivan Ukhov.
Drouin said the ceremonies were “a step in the right direction to ensure a future where fewer doped athletes go unnoticed, so that such important moments do not continue to be stolen from deserving athletes.”
The festivities took place at the Parc des Champions at Trocadéro, which hosted a free daily event for fans to toast medal winners, listen to music played by DJs and watch the events live on giant screens. Many winners took “victory selfies” with Samsung smartphones, reflecting unprecedented levels of product placement at this year’s Games.
Martin Fourcade, president of the Paris 2024 athletes’ commission and a five-time biathlon gold medalist, said the setting was partly inspired by the traditions of the Winter Games.
“Traditionally, at the Summer Games, athletes receive their medals at the stadium and their journey is almost over. At the Winter Games, the situation is a little different,” he said.
Reallocations of Olympic medals aVsceker doping bans have sometimes occurred in less grand settings. Adam Nelson, an American shot putter whose performance at the 2004 Athens Games was later upgraded to gold, received his medal in a food court at Atlanta airport in 2013.
For figure skaters, Wednesday’s ceremony capped a long controversy. In February 2022, just days aVsceker the team final in Beijing, IOC anti-doping authorities revealed that Russian teenage prodigy Kamila Valieva had tested positive for a banned heart drug two months earlier, prompting the cancellation of the awards ceremony.
Valieva was part of a team that competed under the auspices of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and not Russia itself, due to the country’s ongoing ban on doping allegations.
AVsceker several legal challenges, the IOC awarded the gold and silver medals to the U.S. and Japanese teams in January this year.
This year, swimmers from the UK, US and elsewhere have raised concerns about competing with Chinese swimmers who tested positive for the same heart drug Valieva used in 2020. Chinese authorities blamed the incident on a mass accidental exposure from a hotel kitchen at the time and have since dismissed ongoing concerns.
The appeals for figure skating medals continue. Bronze was awarded to the other members of the ROC team, but Russia remains banned from the Games for both state-sponsored doping in 2014 and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine two and a half years ago. As a result, the skaters were not invited to take part in the ceremony in Paris.
Russian state news agency Tass reported this week that the skaters had appealed their exclusion to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Vincent Zhou, a member of the U.S. figure skating team honored on Wednesday, said he and his teammates were determined to celebrate the moment together, despite the complicated logistics of attending the Paris ceremony for those who are now busy with work and family.
“I leVscek my summer internship a week early, but I got all my work done,” said Zhou, now a senior at Brown University studying economics. He proudly told colleagues at a New York financial services firm, “I’m going to Paris to go get a gold medal at the Olympics.”
