Team USA Figure Skaters Finally Receive Gold Medals at Paris Olympics

Group USA’s 2022 Olympic determine skating workforce lastly acquired their gold medals throughout the 2024 Paris Video games.

Throughout a particular ceremony on Wednesday, August 7, Evan Bates, Madison Chock, Karen Chen, Nathan Chen, Zachary Donahue, Madison Hubbell, Brandon Frazier, Alexa Knierim and Vincent Zhou had been introduced with their trophies. Newlyweds Bates, 35, and Chock, 32, marked the second by holding arms as they entered Champions Park in Trocadéro Gardens, positioned on the foot of the Eiffel Tower.

The skating squad all twinned in blue sweatsuits, just like ones worn by the summer time Olympians at their very own medal ceremonies in Paris. After receiving their 2022 medals and floral bouquets, the workforce stoically listened to a rendition of the “Star-Spangled Banner.”

Group USA initially acquired the silver medal behind the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) within the Beijing Olympics. The medal ceremony was canceled on the time after information broke that ROC’s teenage celebrity Kamila Vaileva, then 15, examined optimistic for doping.

The Olympics fee held a listening to on the matter earlier this 12 months, ruling in January that Valieva’s scores had been disqualified. The ruling meant that Group USA would truly earn the gold medal.

“It’s been very sudden,” Chock mentioned on the Immediately present in January. “We simply didn’t have a lot info and folks would all the time ask us. … I didn’t notice how a lot had been weighing on me, and doubtless, weighing on all of us, till we discovered [out] the information. It nearly felt like a weight had been lifted to only really feel this closure from the Beijing video games.”

In the course of the TV interview, the U.S. skaters confirmed they’d but to obtain their medals.

Associated: Greatest Olympics Scandals Ever

All of the drama! The Olympics could also be an occasion that’s all in regards to the sports activities actions, however that doesn’t imply that essentially the most surprising issues occur throughout the tournaments. All through the years, many controversial incidents have made headlines exterior of the occasion. In the course of the 1994 video games, ice skater Nancy Kerrigan was attacked with a baton […]

Forward of the Paris Video games, it was introduced {that a} particular medal ceremony can be held to current the athletes with their {hardware}.

“Over the previous 2.5 years, these 9 athletes have carried out themselves with dignity and humility of their combat for clear sport and a stage taking part in discipline,” Tracy Marek, the CEO of U.S. Determine Skating, mentioned in a July assertion. “We’re elated that Evan Bates, Karen Chen, Nathan Chen, Madison Chock, Zachary Donahue, Brandon Frazier, Madison Hubbell, Alexa Knierim and Vincent Zhou will rightfully be celebrated as gold medalists in Paris, receiving the Olympic second they had been denied at Beijing 2022.”

The assertion continued, “U.S. Determine Skating want to thank the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee for its steadfast help on this matter and the Worldwide Olympic Committee for its dedication to creating this ceremony a actuality.”