The United States figure skating team was formally confirmed as gold medallists from the 2022 Olympics by a sports court ruling Thursday, while the Canadian team is still awaiting a verdict in a separate appeal to be upgraded from fourth to third, knocking the Russians off the podium.
CAS said Thursday it was “not possible to indicate at this time” when the verdict will be given. The world skating body said it “extends its gratitude to the athletes for their patience and resilience throughout this process.”
On Thursday, CAS said three judges dismissed Russian appeals to be reinstated as the team gold medalist. The Olympic title was lost in January when Valieva was disqualified and banned for four years.
“We are thrilled to finally honour these incredible athletes,” Sarah Hirshland, chief executive of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, said in a statement. “We are especially excited that the beautiful city of Paris will join us in this celebration.”
The latest CAS ruling in the Valieva saga guarantees the U.S. team gold medals in an event where no medals of any colour were presented in Beijing in February 2022.
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Special medal ceremonies are planned by the IOC in the second week of the Paris Olympics to honour athletes whose results have been upgraded because of doping cases that were prosecuted and resolved in recent years.
Those celebrations will be in the Champions Park plaza looking across to the Eiffel Tower on the opposite bank of the Seine River.
“This [CAS] decision comes just in time to still be able to make the medal allocation for gold and silver possible” in Paris, the International Olympic Committee said in a statement.
Valieva, who was aged 15 in Beijing, starred as the Russians easily won the team event. The U.S. was second and Japan placed third.
No medals were presented because a positive doping test by Valieva, from a sample given in Russia six weeks earlier, was revealed on the day the team event ended.
Without Valieva’s scores when she was disqualified, Russia dropped to third in the revised result signed off by the International Skating Union.
WATCH | Skate Canada’s Mike Slipchuk wants clarity on 2022 Olympic medal decision:
Skate Canada’s high performance director Mike Slipchuk says they are considering all options, as they prepare to appeal the International Skating Union’s awarding of medals, which kept Canada in fourth place in the 2022 Olympic team event, following the disqualification of Russia’s Kamila Valieva in a doping case.
Source Agencies
