Beijing Winter Olympics 2022 Winners Will Leave China Without Their Medals- Here’s Why

The Beijing Winter Olympics 2022 are about to end in a week. However, controversy has surrounded the Olympics over Russian 15-year-old figure skater, Kamila Valieva.

Valieva failed a pre-game drug screening at the Beijing Olympics. Nevertheless, the Court of Arbitration for Sport allowed her to go ahead and compete at the Olympics.

Consequently, the International Olympic Committee ruled that even though Kamila would be competing, there would be no medal ceremony if she were to secure a podium finish.

If that were to happen, the rest of the athletes atop the podium would then get their medals in a strange manner.

Uproar over how podium finishers will receive their Beijing Winter Olympics 2022 medals

The Court of Arbitration for Sport decided that to deny Kamila Valieva from participating would cause her “irreparable harm”. Thus, they allowed Valieva to compete at the Beijing Winter Olympics 2022.

However, the International Olympic Committee did not agree to the ruling. Consequently, the IOC decided that even though Valieva would compete, they would forego any medal ceremony if she were to win a medal.

The 15-year-old Russian figure skater is easily the favorite to win the gold medal, especially considering her golden victory at the figure skating team event on February 7.

In that vein, Olympic officials stated that they would withhold medals from Valieva and other athletes at the event until the complete resolution of Kamila’s case.

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Sadly, it is all but inevitable that the entire case would take over months to solve. Moreover, until that happens, the medal-winning athletes would have moved on from Beijing.

Thus, the IOC would then ship the medals to the winning athletes. Naturally, this decision has made everyone across the board unhappy.

Olympians take offense to the decision by the Court of Arbitration

Many Olympians the world over have not taken kindly to the ruling by the CAS. They have opined that to let Valieva compete is a slight to all athletes who compete after passing rug tests.

Even though the International Olympic Committee has considered revoking any medals that Camila wins, athletes and Olympians are not quite on-board with the plan.

Decorated American track and field star Sha’Carri Richardson is one of the athletes not happy. She took to Instagram yesterday to state how the loss of her mother wasn’t justification enough for her to take to marijuana. However, Kamila going ahead and competing despite testing for a banned substance is confusing.

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Famous figure skater Adam Rippon, too, has taken offense to the ruling. He tweeted that Valieva needs proper counseling to deal with the incredibly sad situation to actually prevent irreparable harm. However, allowing her to compete does damage to the Olympics, instead, and their reputation.

Clearly, this is a hugely contentious issue, and everyone has their own opinions. However, only time will tell what course the events take, and how the Olympians who medal in the figure skating event will feel about the decisions of the International Olympic Committee.