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Adam Rippon knows what it feels like to stand in the Olympic medals booth. The bronze medalist at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games heard the crowd’s applause as the top prizes in figure skating were presented. The figure skating medal ceremony at the Beijing Games is now outrageous as it has been postponed indefinitely due to a doping case in Russia.
“It’s all so unfair,” said Rippon, who coached US skater Mariah Bell at the Games. “And now it’s also very unfair to all these ladies because all their Olympic experience is now wrapped up in controversy because a country doesn’t want to play by the goddamn rules.”
Rippon, who made angry and occasionally abusive comments at the Olympic figure skating arena on Monday, criticized the decision to allow Russian skater Kamila Valieva to continue competing at the Games despite testing positive for a banned drug; The declaration of the International Olympic Committee that no medals will be awarded in any event that it finishes on the podium; and the continued presence of Russian athletes at major events, years after the country was banned from global sports for running a state-run doping scheme at the 2014 Winter Games.
Rippon said that the athletes whose medals will be rejected in Beijing will overcome their disappointment because celebrating their success on the ice after their performance will be the thing they will remember the most. But the medal ceremony means much more than that, he said.
“This podium experience is for their families, for their country, for all the people who have helped you get to this point,” said Rippon, who is the coach of US skater Mariah Bell. “And now they’re constantly being denied that experience over and over again by people who don’t want to play fair and shouldn’t be here.”
She said she regretted that Valieva had to endure scrutiny for doping while she was such a natural performer, and gushed about her “beautiful spins and graceful stretches” and how fast she skated. He called her “a natural, God-given gift that medicine cannot help”; It’s not something that a vitamin or medicine cures.”
Still, Rippon invoked a panel of judges’ decision to allow 15-year-old Valieva to continue competing with the “absolutely wrong decision”, even if it was done to protect the young star from “irreparable harm.” .
“What about the irreparable damage to the integrity of the Olympic Games?” said Rippon. “If they’re afraid of irreparable harm and don’t want to hurt him mentally, should they get him out of here right now and take him to a psychologist – or at least to his mother?”
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