How waiting for Olympic medals became an endurance sport

It took Lashinda Demus of the United States 52.77 seconds to run the women’s 400 meters hurdles at the 2012 London Olympics. It took her more than ten years to be upgraded from second to first place. A year after that decision and twelve years after the race, she is still waiting for her gold medal.

One of her American teammates, Erik Kynard Jr., competed in the high jump at the London Games. Like Demus, he was beaten by a Russian athlete who was later found guilty of doping. And like Demus, he had to wait many years for that the victor is called. He also never touched his gold medal.

Demus and Kynard are expected to finally receive their medals this summer at the Paris Olympics, according to officials from the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee. The details are still being ironed out; Officials hope a solution will be found soon.

But for nine American figure skaters who were elevated to first place in the team competition in January almost two years after the end of the 2022 Olympic Games in BeijingThe wait continues: The Russian team that finished ahead of them in Beijing and later became embroiled in a doping case has filed multiple appeals against the loss of its gold medals. That could mean months at least new legal battle.

All three cases have highlighted long-standing concerns about the inability of international sports officials to balance the demands of clean sport and fair play with providing timely justice to deserving athletes. The reasons are varied: vulnerabilities in testing; a lack of uniform international commitment in the anti-doping system; an often lengthy appeals process – but the consequences are personal.

Dozens of competitors have received their gold, silver and bronze medals long after their Olympic moment was over. Some, like Demus, 41, and Kynard, 33, withdrew from the competition before receiving resolution. Others ended up celebrating what should have been a career highlight with something more like a shrug.

“It makes the IOC look really bad,” said Bill Mallon, an Olympic historian who tracks medal redistribution. “In the NBA and the NFL, at the end of the game you know who won.”

A year seems more reasonable to resolve doping cases and reallocate medals, Kynard said in an interview, “but not twelve.”

During his ordeal, Kynard said, his faith and trust in the Olympic movement have become “lower and lower.” But he also said he had learned not to define himself by the outcome of a sporting event. He laughed at one point and said there was one consolation in waiting for his gold medal: “I’m looking forward to getting my youngest son a new teething toy.”

Receiving a deferred medal can affirm an athlete’s sense of integrity and bring some inner peace. But the wait can also cause mental stress and, especially for gold medalists, a significant loss of financial opportunity.

Kynard estimated that he had lost at least $500,000 in potential prize money, sponsorships and appearances that he could have claimed as Olympic champion. Twelve years later, he said, the significance of a gold medal feels diminished, “like a participation trophy.”

Late medals are often awarded quietly, and sometimes with little dignity. Adam Nelson, who was declared winner of the shot put at the 2004 Athens Olympics after the apparent winner was disqualified for doping, received his gold medal nine years later outside a Burger King at the Atlanta airport.

Nelson said the anticlimax of receiving his medal at an airport rather than at the site of the competition in Olympia, Greece, the sacred home of the ancient Games, filled him not with joy, but rather with “a real sense of loss’.

Demus, now a high school track coach, did not respond to requests for comment. Last year, when she was finally named the 2012 hurdles champion, she expressed mixed feelings. In an email to NBC Sports, she wrote that users of banned drugs should be stripped of their medals – adding that she would not want any other athlete to suffer the same loss she did in terms of “the official title, medal , recognition and missed compensation that comes with it.”

Since drug screening began at the Olympics in 1968, there have been 164 events in which medals have been reallocated or revoked, said Mallon, the Olympic historian.

Perhaps most infamously, six of the top seven finishers in the men’s 94-kilogram (about 207-pound) weightlifting competition at the London Olympics — including all three original medalists — were later disqualified for doping. The eventual winner was Saeid Mohammedpouran Iranian who finished fifth in the first result.

Anti-doping officials are often one step behind in an endless pharmacological cat-and-mouse game with athletes who use banned substances and blood boosters. To increase the effectiveness of drug testing, blood and urine samples can be stored and retested for up to ten years as more advanced detection technology is developed.

(In 2022, when he withdrew from elite competition, Kynard accepted a six-month ban sparked by a social media post showing him using an intravenous saline infusion – which can aid recovery – above an allowable volume. The infusion did not contain any banned substances, United States anti-doping officials said, but the violation still required punishment.)

Even short delays can cause participants to miss out on every Olympic athlete’s dream: standing on a podium at the Games, seeing their flag raised, hearing their national anthem played.

“When the systems fail you and you are belittled, there is no adequate replacement for it,” said Nelson, now a high school athletic director. “In the Olympic cycle this happens once every four years. There’s nothing you can do to go back and rewrite that history. That moment has passed.”

Since 2018, the IOC and sports governing bodies have been looking for more decent ways to award postponed medals. The locations in Paris considered as possible locations for Demus and Kynard to receive their gold medals include the Olympic Stadium, where the athletics competition will be held, and a park at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, where all medalists will be invited . to celebrate this among family, friends and thousands of spectators.

Kynard said the Olympic Stadium seemed a less likely choice because it would likely be embarrassing for the IOC to so publicly acknowledge “how badly this is screwed up.” The IOC said it tries to resolve such situations in a dignified manner by giving athletes options that try to “meet their preferences as best as possible.”

If the Beijing 2022 Olympics figure skating appeals process is completed in time for the Paris Games, which remains uncertain, the nine American skaters could receive their gold medals during the closing ceremony.

Madison Chock, 31, an ice dancer, along with her husband, Evan Bates, 35, said during a conference call in January that they have experienced “a little underlying feeling of maybe a little bit of sadness and disappointment that we didn’t get those Olympics. ” moment.”

Sarah Hirshland, the CEO of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, said protecting the integrity of the sport must be the top priority. But she also described the long wait for redress by Demus and Kynard as ‘terrible’ and ‘unacceptable’.

“We have an opportunity to try to make things right,” she said, “and that’s what we need to do.”