It was just a month ago that ice dancer Evan Bates, co-captain of the silver-medal-winning U.S. figure skating team that was deprived of a medal ceremony at the Beijing Olympics, spoke emotionally about leaving the Winter Games “empty-handed,” calling the aftermath of the Russian doping scandal “extremely disheartening.”
Now, as the international figure skating community gathers again for the world championships this week in Montpellier, France, those concerns have faded, at least for the time being, Bates and his ice dance partner and fellow team co-captain Madison Chock said last week over Zoom.
While there have been no new developments on the status of the medal ceremony, they said, their focus is no longer on a sports controversy that once seemed so vitally important, but on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the horrors that Vladimir Putin has unleashed on the Ukrainian people, including two of their friends and competitors, ice dancers Alexandra (Sasha) Nazarova and Max Nikitin.