‘What a special moment’: US figure skating team finally receives Beijing 2022 gold medals in ceremony under the Eiffel Tower

CNN

By Matias Grez and Coy Wire, CNN

(CNN) — They say good things come to those that wait – and the wait has certainly been worth it for the USA’s figure skating team.

At the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, the US finished second behind the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) in the team event, with Japan coming third.

However, after Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva had a doping test come back positive for the performance-enhancing substance trimetazidine, no medals were awarded until the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) handed down a decision to disqualify Valieva of “all competitive results” achieved since her positive test.

CAS handed Valieva – who was only 15 at the time of the positive test – a four-year ban, which was accompanied by a re-ranking of medal positions in the team event where the ROC fell to third, with the US and Japan moving up to first and second respectively.

Team members Nathan Chen and Madison Hubbell told CNN Sport’s Coy Wire that the pain of being denied their moment on the podium in Beijing, where there were no fans or families due to the spread of the omicron variant of Covid, has now been replaced with joy.

Hubbell said that “missing out on the medal moment with our families and our friends” hurt the most back in 2022.

But instead of receiving their medals in front of empty stands, the team had their golds placed around their necks at a packed Champions Park in the Trocadéro Gardens, a stunning location at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.

Loud chants of “USA, USA, USA” came from the sizeable contingent of Americans in the stands as the skaters were awarded their medals.

A huge roar then went up as they held their bouquets aloft and waved to the crowd.

The Japanese team members – who were awarded their silver medals alongside the USA and emerged from the tunnel with beaming smiles while doing the conga – stepped off the platform to allow the Americans to have their moment.

“Now, we get to celebrate it at an even greater stage,” Hubbell said ahead of Wednesday’s medal ceremony. “I never could have imagined in my wildest dreams that we would be in Paris receiving our Winter Olympics medals.

“We’re all so incredibly grateful. What a special moment for us. I can’t even imagine that I could be any better than sharing this with our families, so thank you so much to the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and the USOPC (US Olympic and Paralympic Committee) and US Figure Skating for making our dream come true.”

Chen admitted that “it’s been so long” since Beijing that he can’t remember what he was thinking at the time the Valieva news broke.

“But I’m so excited to be here,” he said. “The Beijing team in Paris; it’s a great feeling to be here.

“It’s amazing. We also didn’t have family in Beijing, so to be able to have our families here, to be able to have all of our friends at this grand celebration, it really means a lot to us.”

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CNN’s Homero De la Fuente and Andrew McNicol contributed to this report.