Starting on February 4, 2022, and ending on February 20, 2022, this year’s Beijing Winter Olympics has been a monumental time for new records, achievements, and strong disputes.
Norway finished first in the gold medal count with 16 gold medals, Germany followed with 12 medals, then China with nine, and lastly the US and Sweden tied with eight medals each.
However, the main focus of this year’s Winter Olympics has been its controversies.
The main conflict of this year’s Olympics has been centered around Kamila Valieva, a Russian 15-year-old competing in figure skating events. Before competing, Valieva tested positive for trimetazidine, a drug originally meant to treat test pain.
“The drug helps in the metabolism of fatty acids. And by doing so, it can actually help the ability of the body to use oxygen, which can help performance and help relieve those chest pains brought on by the blocked blood vessels,” said Eugene DePasquale, a cardiologist at the University of Southern California.
In the past, trimetazidine has been found in other athletes. In 2018, Nadezhda Sergeeva, a bobsledder also from Russia, tested positive and was disqualified from the Winter Olympic Games. In 2014, Chinese swimmer Sun Yang, also tested positive, causing the Court of Arbitration for Sport to eventually ban Yang from competition for eight years in 2020. In each case, the athlete that tested positive wasn’t allowed to compete.
In the face of scrutiny, Valieva defends herself, acknowledging that she took two other substances, L-carnitine and Hypoxen, which are similar to the one for which she tested positive. She says that the two substances may have been inadvertently ingested since her grandfather uses trimetazidine.
However, after seeing the positive drug test, The International Olympic Committee cleared Valieva on the condition that if she finished in the top three, there would be no medal ceremony for the event. Valieva would go on to place fourth in women’s individual figure skating.
Outrage has also been sparked towards the downhill slalom course and the indoor bobsledding course. Over 50 athletes have crashed in one of the two courses, leading many to doubt the safety of each course.
Named the Flying Snow Dragon, the track is defined by its 370-degree, 217-meter loop, in which athletes experience up to four-G forces for about seven seconds and leave the loop at a startling 75 miles per hour. Even though this seems like the hardest and most intimidating part of the course, the true challenge is the second to last straight section of the course. Coming out of a 180-degree bend, athletes face a long straight segment of the course, in which they must come out of their turn perfectly straight, else they might, as many others have, hit the right side of the course and flip over.
In addition, blizzard conditions in the slalom racing course combined with not delaying race times led to 33 crashes. Many top athletes, considered the best in their sports and clear favorites in the competition, have crashed, leading many to doubt the eligibility of the games.
The 2022 Beijing Olympics have been nothing if not exciting, with multiple world records broken and an abundance of controversy.