Vincent Zhou and his U.S. Olympic figure skating teammates are finally golden.
Zhou, 23, a rising senior at Brown University, and his teammates were officially awarded gold medals on Aug. 8 in Paris after Russian skater Kamila Valieva was disqualified for doping at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing.
“During the last two years, I got so used to introducing myself as ‘an Olympic medalist, but it’s complicated,’ that it feels a bit strange to finally be able to change that,” Zhou said in a statement released by Brown. “I am so grateful that we saw this outcome and that the International Olympic Committee is willing to hold a medal ceremony in Paris. My team and I are so excited.”
Zhou’s teammates include Evan Bates, Karen Chen, Nathan Chen, Madison Chock, Zachary Donohue, Brandon Frazier, Madison Hubbell, and Alex Knierim. All were in attendance for the special medals ceremony.
Earlier this year, the Court of Arbitration for Sport issued a final ruling that banned Valieva from skating until the end of 2025. The court disqualified all of her performances since 2021, and the removal of her scores from the 2022 Olympics allowed the American squad to take the top spot on the podium.
A Russian appeal to win back the Olympic team title was dismissed just before the Paris Games began.
Japan was awarded a silver medal. No bronze was awarded although Canada, which placed fourth, is appealing that decision.
In an interview before the court’s decision, Zhou told Rhode Island PBS Weekly about the fortunes and fates of life on skates.
The full interview can be found here.
A fearless kid growing up
“There’s always something new to be discovered every time you step out on the ice,” Zhou said. “In skating, we are doing things that are, you know, on the edge of what’s possible physically for humans.
“What you don’t see is the hours and hours of pure physical training that we’re doing, Just like your favorite football player or just like your favorite basketball players.”
Zhou, from Palo Alto, California, began skating as a 5-year-old and quickly received praise and trophies.
“I was this fearless kid who would ... stack tables on top of tables and chairs on top of those tables, and then boxes on top of those chairs to get to the Lego box at the top of the bookshelf,” Zhou said. “It’s kind of the same thing later on.
“Stacking tools I have on top of one on top of each other to try and build a great foundation. I think it’s a great metaphor.”
Zhou qualified for the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, in 2018. He made history, becoming the first skater to land a quadruple Lutz in the short program. He returned to the Olympics in 2022, and the U.S. squad originally was awarded the silver medal behind Russia.
“The moment I realized I was going to be an Olympic medalist was emotional and fulfilling in a way that’s difficult to put into words,” Zhou said. “It felt hard to believe,
“Like a childhood wish. Something that I sacrificed 17 years of my life for was finally being fulfilled and all that time, all the hardships and the struggles and all the small victories along the way.”
But the team event was overshadowed by the doping scandal, and Zhou suffered a personal setback when he was diagnosed with COVID-19 the night before the men’s figure skating competition and was forced to drop out.
Zhou, who called the doping revelations a “slap in the face,” initially considered skipping the World Championships after the 2022 Games.
‘I just felt like an empty shell’
Testing positive “was devastating for me,” he said. “it was like losing a loved one.
“As soon as I got home from Beijing, then it actually hit me. Like that’s when the full weight of what had happened actually settled in,” Zhou said. “I just felt like an empty shell. Like there was this vast chasm with nothing inside me. I had no motivation to skate.
“At one point, my mom told me that it was OK to withdraw from Worlds. It was OK to give up. And that’s something that I’ve never heard come out of her mouth because she’s always been that, you know, that tough love, like, like iron-willed mother ... who’s drilled perseverance and grit,” he added. And to hear from her that it’s OK to give up, that was almost a good thing because it kind of snapped me back to like, ‘Am I actually hearing this? Do I want to give up?’
“And that kind of made me rethink it a little, you know? You know, if you go to worlds, it’s almost certain that you’re gonna skate badly. But would you let yourself, would you be able to live the rest of your life knowing that you allowed yourself to give up in the most critical moment?”
Zhou would capture a bronze medal at the World Championships, calling it “the victory that I didn’t get the chance to achieve at the Olympics.”
That begs the question: Will Zhou compete in the 2026 Games in Italy? His plate is already full with his studies at Brown, where he is majoring in business and economics.
“That is a difficult decision. And as of right now, my answer is I truly don’t know,” Zhou said. “I have three more years here at Brown. I’ll be studying full-time and you can’t study full-time and train full-time.
“There aren’t 48 hours in a day. But there is a short window after that, where if I wanted to — if I was extremely motivated to make a comeback — then it’s possible.”
Zhou characterizes being a full-time student as “starting all over again.:
“The motto is, in practice, beat yourself in competition, be yourself,” he said. “I just have to put myself into this completely different mindset of accepting that I’m a beginner and accepting that I have so much to learn.”
