Team USA’s 2022 Olympic figure skating team finally received their gold medals during the 2024 Paris Games.
During a special ceremony on Wednesday, August 7, Evan Bates, Madison Chock, Karen Chen, Nathan Chen, Zachary Donahue, Madison Hubbell, Brandon Frazier, Alexa Knierim and Vincent Zhou were presented with their trophies. Newlyweds Bates, 35, and Chock, 32, marked the moment by holding hands as they entered Champions Park in Trocadéro Gardens, located at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.
The skating squad all twinned in blue sweatsuits, similar to ones worn by the summer Olympians at their own medal ceremonies in Paris. After receiving their 2022 medals and floral bouquets, the team stoically listened to a rendition of the “Star-Spangled Banner.”
Team USA initially received the silver medal behind the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) in the Beijing Olympics. The medal ceremony was canceled at the time after news broke that ROC’s teenage superstar Kamila Vaileva, then 15, tested positive for doping.
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The Olympics commission held a hearing on the matter earlier this year, ruling in January that Valieva’s scores had been disqualified. The ruling meant that Team USA would actually earn the gold medal.
“It’s been very unexpected,” Chock said on the Today show in January. “We just didn’t have much information and people would always ask us. … I didn’t realize how much had been weighing on me, and probably, weighing on all of us, until we found [out] the news. It almost felt like a weight had been lifted to just feel this closure from the Beijing games.”
During the TV interview, the U.S. skaters confirmed they had yet to receive their medals.
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Ahead of the Paris Games, it was announced that a special medal ceremony would be held to present the athletes with their hardware.
“Over the past 2.5 years, these nine athletes have conducted themselves with dignity and humility in their fight for clean sport and a level playing field,” Tracy Marek, the CEO of U.S. Figure Skating, said in a July statement. “We are 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 moment they were denied at Beijing 2022.”
The statement continued, “U.S. Figure Skating would like to thank the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee for its steadfast support in this matter and the International Olympic Committee for its commitment to making this ceremony a reality.”
