More Than Medals: 500 Days and Counting

It's more than medals.

Each member who competed for Team USA in the team event at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games dreamed of standing on the podium. After three days of competition, together, they were on the cusp of seeing that dream realized. But instead of receiving their medals during a medal ceremony to celebrate their accomplishment, they left with just empty medal boxes.

Today marks 500 days since the nine U.S. athletes competing in the team event should have been awarded their medals after a Russian skater tested positive for a banned substance. They are the first athletes in the history of the Games to earn a place on the podium but leave empty-handed.

For the members of Team USA, the empty medal box symbolizes so much more than a piece of hardware. Below, hear from members of Team USA about what a medal represents and what the empty medal box means to them.
 
What does a medal represent to you?
Evan Bates: To me, a medal represents all the years of hard work and sacrifice that go into an achievement that's worth celebrating. The medal is part of that celebration and it's something you can take with you and have with you for the rest of your life. Having the medal is something that you get to share with your friends and your family and loved ones who were a part of your journey in their own special way. 

Karen Chen: To me, a medal means memories. If I hold a medal, if I go back and look through my collection of medals, as soon as I see the medal, as soon as I hold it, all the memories start rushing in, whether it's from my first competition or my first national title. It all just means so much. Although a medal represents validation and success, and even popularity, for me it represents something that I was able to achieve and that all my work and efforts absolutely paid off.

Alexa Knierim: A medal to me represents the accumulation of my hard work and training as well as the support and sacrifices from my team and my family.

Vincent Zhou: A medal to me represents years of perseverance and sacrifice in the pursuit of excellence in its purest form.
 
What does the empty medal box from Beijing mean to you?
Nathan Chen: The empty medal box represents a negation of all the success and accomplishments of this incredible team. We've put in a lot of work and a lot of effort in order to perform the way that we did at the Olympics and to not be able to have our medal, to not be able to celebrate as a team, to not be able to have that moment together to solidify the fact that we deserve a medal and deserve that medal ceremony is really a challenge. We've all worked so hard to accomplish this goal and we deserve to have the opportunity to share this moment together as a team.

Madison Chock: The empty medal box to me is representative of a broken promise – a promise that is made between the athletes and the unspoken integrity of sport where you agree to do your best, compete clean and give it everything you have, and if you're the best, you are awarded a medal. A medal that will hold meaning of that moment, marking its importance. In this case, there were many athletes that put their best out there and were not able to receive the award that is promised to them.

Zachary Donohue: Seeing an empty medal box from such a prestigious event like the Olympics is indicative of only one thing and that's a massive lack of integrity along the sport.  We as athletes know what is required of us, know what is expected of us and our own personal integrity to compete clean and with the very best of what we have to give on that day knowing that it may not be enough and knowing that it may be the step we needed to take into the place our dreams take us, we know what is being asked of us. When we have an empty box over a year later with no clear outcome or direction of where this could lead, it's very frustrating to know that over 20 years for myself and for many other athletes have been caught up in such a broken system and broken way of looking at ourselves as athletes in the sport.

Brandon Frazier: We deserve our medal to be in our medal box. My training mates, my fellow American athletes, we worked so hard to achieve that medal at the Olympic Games and all put out amazing, true performances that deserve to stand on that podium and receive that medal. Today, staring at that empty medal box is just a reminder that we were all very disappointed not to be given what we all thought we deserved fairly.

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