Olympics Updates: Mikaela Shiffrin Finishes Super-G Race, but Won’t Medal

The 15-year-old star of Russia’s figure skating team who powered it to a win in the team figure skating competition tested positive for a banned substance at a national competition leading up to the Games, potentially throwing the team’s gold medal into doubt.

A doping test collected from the skater, Kamila Valieva, was found to have used trimetazidine, a heart medication not normally allowed in competition, according to a statement Friday from the International Testing Agency.

It was unclear if Russia would be awarded the gold medal.

The decision, the testing agency said, “can be taken by the ISU only after a final decision on the full merits of the case has been taken.” The International Olympic Committee did not immediately comment.

The award ceremony for the event, which Russia won Monday, beating the United States and Japan, had been delayed since Tuesday as International Olympic Committee officials said they were investigating a “legal issue.”

The award ceremony was supposed to take place Tuesday night in Beijing, with the American team to receive silver and Japan bronze. But just as the teams prepared to head to a plaza for the event, they were told to turn back.

Since then, Olympic officials had declined to elaborate on what is causing the delay.

This is developing story. Check back for updates.

Mikaela Shiffrin completed her run in the super-G, a personal victory after a rough start but likely not enough to medal in the event. She currently stands in eighth place.

Shiffrin was disqualified from her second consecutive race in Beijing on Wednesday after making it through just a handful of gates. The failures led Shiffrin, a two-time Olympic medalist, to question whether she should take a spot in speed skiing races from one of her teammates who might be more deserving.

“If I am going to ski out on the fifth gate, well, what’s the point?” she said shortly after skiing out of the slalom, her best event.

Nothing in Shiffrin’s professional career portended the series of quick, complete disappointments she is enduring this week on her sport’s biggest stage.

Shiffrin, a three-time overall World Cup champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist, does not specialize in speed events. She took years to “learn to fly” — a term skiers use to describe the adjustment to high-speed, jump-infused speed events — and the treachery and danger of those races are not a natural fit with her personality. At this point, though, merely finishing a race could be seen as a triumph.

Shiffrin was expected to contend for multiple gold medals at these Games and race in as many as five events.

It all came to an end here, on a tilted chute of ice on an unnamed mountain in China, and the only surprise was that 35-year-old Shaun White did not have one more trick in him.

Riding in his fifth and final Winter Olympics, searching for his fourth gold medal, White finished just shy of a medal in men’s halfpipe.

White’s solid but unspectacular opening run scored 72, putting him fourth of nine competitors. He got within reach of a possible medal on his second run, scoring an 85 that moved him briefly to second place. But Scotty James then scored a 92.5 to take first and knock White back to fourth.

On the third run, Ayumu Hirano, of Japan, landed an epic run with a triple cork, earning a 96 and the gold medal. James, of Australia, took silver, and Jan Scherrer, of Switzerland, won the bronze.

White fell on his third run, quickly got to his feet, took off his helmet and slid slowly into the warm embrace of cheering fans, knowing they had just seen the end of something.

White will end his Olympics career — unless he changes his mind on Italy in 2026 — with three gold medals (2006, 2010, 2018), two fourth-place finishes (2014, 2022) and a lifetime of icon status.

He had hoped to plant a big run in his first attempt, to put pressure on his competitors and give himself room to try to elevate even higher in rounds 1 and 2.

The competition promised to be high-flying, and it was. A strong Japanese contingent had eyes on spinning their way to the podium, led by three Hiranos — Ayumu (a two-time silver medalist), Kaishu (his little brother) and Ruka (no relation).

James, a lanky Australian who has led the world circuit in recent years, came in search of an elusive gold medal. Taylor Gold, the American veteran who fought years of injuries after his 2014 Olympic appearance, brought his technical, old-school style, hoping judges would award ingenuity, not just rotations.

But the focus was on White. He had called this a farewell tour, though it was unclear if it was him saying goodbye to competitive snowboarding or fans saying goodbye to him. Both, probably. Either way, it was not an exhibition, and White was granted no favors. White earned his way to the Olympics, after a long season of injuries, Covid and doubts. And then into the final.

He seemed re-energized, and relieved, to have made it through qualifications on his second and final run — drama, always drama — knowing that he would leave the sport still in the most elite class.

Beginning in Turin 16 years ago, through Vancouver, Sochi and Pyeongchang, White ended up on a nondescript mountainside more than 100 miles northwest of Beijing to make his final rides. There were more reporters and cameras gazing at him than fans, the grandstands mostly empty because of the pandemic. But there were countless people watching on screens around the world, including White’s family and friends in and around his native San Diego.

The United States brought to Beijing its youngest men’s hockey team since 1994.

It hardly hampered them. With a roster filled with college players, the team outdistanced China, 8-0, on Thursday night in the opening game of their Olympic tournament.

Brendan Brisson, a 20-year-old forward from the University of Michigan, scored about halfway through the first period with a powerful, soaring shot from the face-off circle that surged past the Chinese goalkeeper.

The Americans’ eruption began in the second period, when they scored three times in about 13 minutes, including a goal by Brian O’Neill, the only player on the U.S. roster with Olympic experience.

A late burst of offensive pressure by the Chinese team — which faced public questions last year over whether it was worthy of a slot in the Olympic tournament — faltered, in part because of the goaltending reflexes of Drew Commesso, a sophomore at Boston University.

The United States is scheduled to compete next on Saturday, when it will play Canada. China will meet Germany later that day.

Medal tallies in recent Winter Olympics have fallen into fairly predictable patterns: Norway and Germany are at the top. The United States is not too far behind. Host countries overachieve.

But this year’s race, at least so far, is seeming more open than usual.

After competition on Thursday, the official Olympic medal table, which lists countries by their number of gold medals, has Germany at the top with six and Norway with five. But four more countries — Austria, the United States, the Netherlands and Sweden — are just behind, with four each. China has three.

Counting by gold medals is one approach. Looking at it another way, however, Austria is in the lead with the most medals overall (13, at last count). Next up is Canada, which has only one gold medal but 12 overall, and Norway. Russia has 11, the United States has 10, and Germany is almost out of the picture with nine.

Things are changing fast, though. The United States went from a single gold medal to four on Thursday after wins by Nathan Chen, Chloe Kim and the freestyle skiing coed aerials team.

On Friday, the medals could be spread around again. The Netherlands could win in short track, Germany in skeleton and Norway in biathlon. And some other nations might be joining the leaders, as Switzerland and Italy (women’s super G), Japan (halfpipe), Sweden (speedskating) and Finland (cross country) have gold medal contenders.

Norway and Germany tied four years ago with 14 gold medals, which also tied the record set by Canada at the 2010 Vancouver Games. Norway’s 39 total medals in 2018 was also a record, and optimistic Norwegians have been talking about breaking it in 2022. Yet such records are a little misleading because the Games expand just about every year, with more events added.

Norway is expected to continue to rack up golds in almost everything, and it would have to still be the favorite to wind up on top again — an impressive feat for a nation of five million.

But before you hail Norway for its global athletic supremacy, consider its gold medals at the last few Summer Games: four, zero, two and three. Cross-country skiing, yes. Modern pentathlon, maybe not.

More than two days after the team figure skating event ended with Russia winning, Olympics officials still have not handed out the medals as they investigate a “legal issue” that has generated questions in the sport.

The award ceremony was supposed to take place Tuesday night in Beijing, with the American team to receive silver medals and Japan bronze, but just as the teams prepared to head to a plaza for the event they were told to turn back.

Since then, Olympics officials have declined to elaborate on what is causing the delay.

“Obviously we ask for and hope for the patience and understanding of all the athletes involved here,” Mark Adams, a spokesman for the I.O.C., said at a news conference on Thursday in Beijing. “But it is a legal case, and I’m bound by this legal case, and I’m unable to say anything more.”

Adams was asked about reports in the Russian news media that the issue involved whether an athlete on the Russian team had tested positive for a banned substance, but would only say, “I have seen the reports, but I cannot comment on them.”

Adams had said on Wednesday that there would be more information imminently, but none came on Thursday morning. He had said that Olympic officials were consulting with lawyers and the International Skating Union, the sport’s global governing body, to resolve the matter.

There was no more clarity on the situation at the figure skating venue, where the men’s singles competition was taking place Thursday morning. Russian skaters there declined to answer questions on the matter.

Russia won the team event Monday behind a breakout performance by its 15-year-old star, Kamila Valieva.

The team event is a mixed-gender competition that made its debut at the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia. A Russian team won that year and then claimed the silver medal behind Canada four years later in Pyeongchang, South Korea. The United States won the bronze medal in both previous editions.

This year, the American team, led by the three-time world champion Nathan Chen, finished second behind the Russian team in the best finish in the event for the U.S.

Adams said at the news conference that the I.O.C. generally was not responsible for drug testing and any punishments, noting that those responsibilities fell to organizations like the International Testing Agency and the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

But he was vague on who was looking at the current case.

“Even if I comment on who is handling the matter, it tells you what kind of matter it is, so I’m not going to,” he said.

He took the same stance when asked whether any potential doping case involving Russia would force the I.O.C. to re-evaluate a decision to allow the country’s athletes to compete at the Games under the moniker “Russian Olympic Committee.” The country was officially banned from the Games as part of the fallout of a state-sponsored doping scheme.

“Quite a lot of speculation in that question,” he said.

The team event is contested over several days. In it, each country is represented by men’s and women’s singles skaters, a pairs team and a set of ice dancers. The athletes compete in several rounds of performances, and the scores are combined to crown a winner.

The event can showcase the breadth of a team’s skating talent, but team events also come with risks. Germany and Ukraine failed to score points in portions of this year’s competition after losing athletes to positive coronavirus tests, ending their slim medal hopes.

But the disqualification of any athlete from a medal-winning team — a regular occurrence in other Olympic sports — mean the loss of that athlete’s points. That could alter the final standings.

Shortly after the most triumphant moments of their lives, the winning Olympic athletes are holding not the medals they’ve dreamed of for years, if not decades, but stuffed animals encased in a plastic shell.

A celebratory ceremony immediately follows the end of each medal-awarding event, but the athletes don’t receive their medals until a follow-up ceremony the next day. In the first ceremony, the glowing athletes ascend the familiar three-tier platform, where Summer Olympians would have a medal placed around their necks.

Instead, the winners in the Beijing Olympics are handed something of a placeholder: A stuffed-animal version of Bing Dwen Dwen, the panda Olympic mascot, dressed in a shell of ice resembling a spacesuit and flanked by a golden fabric wreath of pine, bamboo and plum. All three winners, whether gold, silver or bronze, get the same souvenir, one that is barely distinguishable from those available in fan merchandise stores.

And a plush Bing Dwen Dwen is hard to come by. Fans have waited for hours and lined up at stores before they open for a chance to buy the souvenir, which has been limited to one per person. Officials have promised more will be available, and nearly a million people watched a livestream of their production at a factory in Fujian Province on Thursday.

Image

“We’ve collected quite a few things at the Olympics so far, so I have a kind of treasure of things to bring home to the family,” Isabelle Weidemann, a bronze medal winner in the women’s 3000-meter speedskating event, said of the placeholder.

Getting to hold the actual medal on Sunday, a day after her event, felt “incredibly different” from holding the stuffed panda, she said.

“It’s a lot more emotional, too,” she said.

In the second ceremony, held in a venue dedicated solely to handing out medals, the winners are paraded across a stage, as a few hundred fans cheer near the Olympic cauldron. The athletes ascend another three-tier platform before members of the International Olympic Committee hand them their medals, which they put on themselves. They are allowed to remove their masks for a moment.

A similar two-ceremony format was used in the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang.

Arianna Fontana, who won a silver medal as part of Italy’s mixed team short-track speedskating, said on Sunday after her medal ceremony that it was nice to receive her medal with more people watching, compared to the largely empty short track stadium.

“Now it’s real,” she said. “Yesterday there was a lot of adrenaline, a lot of emotion, and maybe it took a little bit to understand what really happened.”

She continued: “Today we have this medal on our necks, and it feels amazing.”

The U.S. broadcast coverage of the 2022 Winter Games continues on Thursday with medal events in snowboarding halfpipe and Alpine skiing super-G, as the hockey and curling competitions advance and skeleton begins. All times are Eastern.

SNOWBOARDING The three-time Olympic gold medalist Shaun White, who is competing in his fifth and final Games, will be in pursuit of gold once more in the men’s snowboarding halfpipe final, airing live in prime time at 8:30 p.m. on NBC.

SKELETON The women’s event gets underway with the athletes’ first runs, airing live at 8:30 p.m. on USA Network and featuring Kelly Curtis and Katie Uhlaender of the United States.

ALPINE SKIING The two-time Olympic gold medalist Mikaela Shiffrin will compete in the women’s super-G event, airing live at 10 p.m. on NBC and Peacock. Shiffrin will aim to be the first American woman to win a gold medal in the event since Picabo Street did so in 1998. Keely Cashman, Alix Wilkinson and Isabella Wright also compete for the United States.

HOCKEY The U.S. women’s team continues its defense of the 2018 gold medal as it plays the Czech Republic in the quarterfinals. The game will air live at 11:10 p.m. on NBC and USA Network. Denmark faces the Russian team in a preliminary game of the men’s tournament live at 11:10 p.m. on CNBC.

CURLING The U.S. men’s team, skippered by the 2018 Olympic gold medalist John Shuster, faces Britain in pool play, airing live at 8:05 p.m. on CNBC and Peacock. The team has begun the Olympics with a 1-1 record, which includes a victory over Russia.