Figure Skating At The 2022 Winter Olympics – Team Event

The team event in figure skating at the 2022 Winter Olympics was held on 4, 6, and 7 February, at the Capital Indoor Stadium in Haidian District of Beijing.

Summary

The 2018 team event gold was won by Canada, with the Russian Olympic Committee placing second, and the United States placing third. Canadian 2018 Olympic champion Eric Radford returned, but this time he competed with a new partner, Vanessa James.

In 2022, the Russian Olympic Committee entered the team event as the favorite, with the United States, Canada, and Japan also expected to be in medal contention. The ROC decided to enter their top skaters for both the short program and free skating and initially won the event nine points ahead of the United States, who initially took silver, while Japan initially won the bronze medal.

Doping controversy

The medal ceremony originally scheduled for Tuesday, 8 February, was delayed over what International Olympic Committee (IOC) spokesperson Mark Adams described as a situation that required "legal consultation" with the International Skating Union (ISU). Several media outlets reported on Wednesday that the issue was over a positive test, held in December 2021, for trimetazidine by the ROC's Kamila Valieva, which was officially confirmed on 11 February. The results were delayed, pending investigation. The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), under suspension from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) since 2015 for its years of serving solely to hide the positive doping results of Russian athletes, cleared Valieva on 9 February, a day after the December test results were released, two months after the test. The IOC, WADA, and International Skating Union (ISU) appealed RUSADA's decision.

On February 14, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled that Valieva should be allowed to compete in the women's single event, deciding that preventing her from competing "would cause her irreparable harm in the circumstances", though her gold medal in the team event was still under consideration. The favorable decision from the court was made in part due to her age, as minor athletes are subject to different rules than adult athletes. The IOC announced that the medal ceremony would not take place until the investigation was over and there was a concrete decision whether to strip Russia of their medals.

In mid-November, WADA requested that CAS take up the review of the Valieva case with an eye towards a four-year suspension of Valieva, which would exclude her from competition at the next Winter Olympics, and to rescind her first-place performance at the previous Beijing Olympics because, "the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) did not meet a WADA-imposed Nov. 4 deadline to deliver a verdict on Valiyeva's case."

On 29 January 2024, the CAS disqualified Valieva for four years retroactive to 25 December 2021 for an anti-doping rule violation they found her to have committed. On 30 January 2024, the ISU, among other actions, subtracted Valieva's points from Russia's score, without changing any other scores, and re-allocated medals in the 2022 Winter Olympics figure skating team event, upgrading the United States and Japan to gold and silver, respectively, while downgrading ROC to bronze. Canada, believing it should receive the bronze medal instead, accused the ISU of not following its own rule, which requires that competitors have their placements move up after any competitor who placed higher is disqualified; if the other ladies singles skaters in the team event received one additional point each for having moved up a place, each of the other four countries in the final would have earned two additional points, including Canada, which would have placed just ahead of Russia. In a statement on 9 February, the ISU contended that the rule did not apply in this case and that, "in any complex and extraordinary situation like this, the reallocation of points could negatively affect the relative team ranking, adversely impacting teams that had nothing to do with the incident in question".

In four appeals, the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) (along with the Canadian team members) and Russia appealed the decision to CAS by 26 February, with one appeal by the COC requesting that two points (one for each affected event) be added to each of the top four teams other than Russia (the United States, Canada, Japan, and China), thus giving Canada bronze, and three Russian appeals (one each by the ROC, the Russian Figure Skating Federation, and the Russian team members, including Valieva) requesting reinstatement of the gold medal; all four appeals name the ISU as defendant, with the Canadian appeal additionally including all three Russia appellants and the IOC as defendants. The Russian appeals were heard on 12 June 2024, while the Canadian appeal was heard on 22 July 2024. The Russian appeals were dismissed on 25 July with a decision on the Canadian appeal still pending, as of that date. The IOC had requested an expedited decision on the Canadian appeal from the CAS, but as the CAS is independent of the IOC, the IOC could not compel an expedited review by the CAS. On 1 August, the CAS also dismissed the Canadian appeal, finalizing the results.

Medal reallocation

Under the IOC's Medal Reallocation Rules, the IOC, ISU, and the national committees for both the United States and Japan coordinated the medal ceremony for gold and silver medals during Medal Reallocation Ceremonies at the subsequent Summer Olympics 17 1/2 months later in Paris where both the American and Japanese teams participated. The bronze medal was still unsettled at the time due to the pending Canadian appeal.

The ceremony took place on 7 August 2024 at Champions Park at the Jardins du Trocadéro and was treated as a medal reallocation ceremony, with seven summer events from 2000 to 2012 also given reallocation ceremonies later in the week. Though the ROC team was awarded the bronze medal after the rejection of the Canadian appeal, the ongoing suspension of the ROC (the committee, not the team) means Russia has no representation at the Olympics and thus could not receive the medals.

Timeline

All times are (UTC+8).

Qualification

On the issue of the disqualification of participating athletes at the Winter Olympics, the ISU has issued a statement regarding its policy regarding doping violations which may be alleged for the duration of the events of the Games stating that the “International Skating Union cannot disclose any information about a possible anti-doping rule violation. This is regulated by the ISU anti-doping rules and the IOC anti-doping rules for the Beijing 2022 Olympics.”

Entries

Member nations submitted the following entries:

Results

Short programs/rhythm dance

Men

The men's short program was held on 4 February 2022.

Pairs

The pairs short program was held on 4 February 2022.

Ice dance

The ice dance rhythm dance was held on 4 February 2022.

Women

The women's short program was held on 6 February 2022.

Free skates/dance

Men

The men's free skate was held on 6 February 2022.

Pairs

The pairs free skate was held on 7 February 2022.

Ice dance

The ice dance free dance was held on 7 February 2022.

Women

The women's free skate was held on 7 February 2022.

Overall

Team overall

The top five teams at the end of the short programs/rhythm dance advanced to the free skates/dance.Figure Skating - Team Event - Group Results
, Olympics.com

Notes

See also

* Doping in figure skating
* List of stripped Olympic medals

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Figure skating At The 2022 Winter Olympics - Team event
Figure skating at the 2022 Winter Olympics
Mixed events at the 2022 Winter Olympics