Figure Skating at the 2022 Winter Olympics

Figure skating is often the focal point of the Winter Games, whether through the brilliance of skaters like Dick Button, Katarina Witt, or the pair of Rodnina and Zaitsev, the episodes of controversial judging that had blighted the sport down through the years or even the sheer madness of the Kerrigan-Harding situation at the Lillehammer Games, but the spectre of doping had never loomed large on the sport prior to the 2022 Winter Games.

After the team from the Russian Olympic Committee had easily won the team event on February 7th, the IOC announced that the medal ceremony would not go on as planned and the media reported that this was because a doping irregularity connected to the winning team. Eventually the International Testing Agency confirmed 15-year-old Kamila Valiyeva had tested positive for trimetazidine at the Russian Championships in December.

After a hearing at the Court of Arbitration, Valiyeva was allowed to compete in the women’s event because “the Panel is persuaded that in the face of irreparable harm to the Athlete upon issuance of a Provisional Suspension (eventually possibly being found to be unjustified), there is no founded and equally tangible irreparable harm in case of lifting of the Provisional Suspension (sic), neither for the Applicants nor for the other competitors.”

Unsurprisingly, in the face of extreme media scrutiny, Valiyeva fell apart in the long programme and the heavy favourite failed even to make the Olympic podium. Russia still won the title in the shape of Anna Shcherbakova, herself only 17 years of age.

Nathan Chen of the USA, who had dominated his event at the World Championships since the last Winter Games, won the men’s title quite comfortably ahead of a procession of talented Japanese skaters while the victory of the pair of Sui Wenjing and Han Cong must have been immensely satisfying after missing out on gold at the 2018 Games by .5 of a point.

Western European pride was upheld by French ice dancers Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, who won gold ahead of strong challenges from the Russian Olympic Committee and the United States.

The competitions were held at the Shoudu Tiyguan (The Capital Indoor Stadium), a venue that had held volleyball at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Qualification for the Games came in two stages. The majority of the field qualified by performances at the 2021 World Championships while the rest of the qualifiers came via the Nebelhorn Trophy in Oberstdorf, Germany in late September 2021.

The results from the team competition are still unconfirmed pending an inquiry into Valiyeva as of April 2022.