SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 13 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU D9
b eijing OlyMPicsBY ROMAN STUBBSbeijing — No two men’s hockey
teams at the Winter Olympics
were more affected by the NHL’s
decision to withdraw its players
from the tournament than the
United States and Canada, and
before either could think about
squaring o ff i n Saturday’s p relimi-
nary round matchup, they had to
first test their patched-over ros-
ters against one another in a
scrimmage last week. It went
about how you would expect it to
go b etween rivals: T here w as plen-
ty of hitting and squabbling in a
chippy session that lasted two pe-
riods, the best each could do to
prepare for the Games after both
scrambled to field teams over the
past month.
“It gave us a little feel for how
they were going to come out,” U.S.
forward B rendan Brisson s aid.
At least neither team would
have the advantage of cohesion
when it was time for the real deal
at National Indoor Stadium, a
game that w as supposed t o feature
some of the NHL’s most promi-
nent names — Connor McDavid
and S idney Crosby against A uston
Matthews and Patrick Kane, and
on and on — but instead s aw t hese
powerhouses roll out bands of
journeymen and r aw c ollege pros-
pects, players who may have been
recognizable to hardcore hockey
fans but few others. The Ameri-
cans appeared to have jelled
quicker than the Canadians in a
4-2 win, which caused their head
coach to crack a smirk afterward
as he considered just how chaotic
it had b een to get to this point.
“The lines have been playing
together for about a whole week
now, so I t hink t hey have a chance
to form more chemistry,” said Da-
vid Q uinn, who was announced as
the U.S. coach 38 days before the
Olympics began. “There’s a great
feeling in that locker room. Win-
ning helps that, for sure.”
At least for a few hours S atur-
day, a victory for the Americans
could help alleviate the past
month’s stress against a rival that
could f ully relate. T he N HL’s w ith-
drawal from t he Games because o f
coronavirus concerns in late De-
cember had forced both of these
teams, once considered medal fa-
vorites, to build rosters from
scratch i n a matter of a f ew w eeks.
The United States did not finalizeits roster until Jan. 13; Canada
followed suit 12 days l ater, with the
Olympics less than two weeks
away.
“Obviously with the NHL get-
ting out of the Olympics not too
long ago, it was kind of a quick
turnaround,” Brisson said. “We
were just trying to focus... when
we got here, just dialing in on the
systems and the team structure.”
The rivals summoned players
from across the world to report to
training camps for a few days —
some from European leagues,
some from American college c am-puses, some out o f semiretirement
— and there were other logistical
hurdles along the way. U.S. player
Jake Sanderson showed up late to
Beijing after landing in the coro-
navirus protocols, and Canada
Coach Claude Julien didn’t know
if he would be able to coach at all
after breaking his ribs during a
team-building e xercise a t training
camp in Switzerland. Fittingly, he
arrived a couple days before his
team took t he i ce this w eek.
By Saturday, it felt like a victory
for both teams to just play a com-
petitive hockey game. No otherteams at these Olympics have
faced such a radical roster trans-
formation in such little time, but
there can be some hidden advan-
tages to that, Quinn said.
“There’s an element of freedom
that our players are playing with... this is a p layer’s g ame. It a lways
has been, a nd i t always w ill b e,” he
said. “It’s not like football, where
every six seconds you can get in
the h uddle a nd talk about a play, a
guy going here and a guy going
there. Within a shift i t could be f ive
different changes of possession,
where it’s offense-defense, of-
fense-defense. So you have to al-
low f or some freedom.”
Brisson, who has balanced his
English homework from the Uni-
versity of Michigan with compet-
ing at h is first Olympics, scored h is
second goal of the Games early in
the s econd p eriod t o give h is t eam
a 3-1 lead. The Americans were t he
sharper team from the onset —
Canada took a 1-0 lead in the first
period off a soft goal that trickled
through the legs of goaltender
Strauss Mann but otherwise
struggled to offset Team USA’s
speed a ll a fternoon.
U. S. captain Andy Miele and
Ben Meyers responded to the d efi-
cit with two goals in the first, and
Kenny Agostino buried a feed
from Miele in the third period to
give his team a two-goal cushion.
The buzz of the matchup had
waned s ince the N HL opted to not
send its stars, but Saturday at l east
featured four of the top five picks
in last year’s NHL draft — and it
was still a United States-Canada
hockey game.
“I think the k ids can play, I t hink
it’s s afe to say,” Agostino said. “But
this was a man’s game tonight.
Canada-USA, there’s really no ex-
planation needed, and all of them
stepped u p and played l ike men.”
Brisson, whose f ather, Pat, i s an
NHL a gent, grew up in the league’s
circles and remembers cheering
for certain stars when they were
allowed to compete at the Olym-
pics. He f igured that some o f them
had p robably texted him about his
performance in Beijing, but he
doesn’t have his normal phone
with him. It’s one of the logistical
twists i n a lifetime o f them packed
into the past few weeks for Team
USA. T hat’s why after it was done,
Quinn urged his players to enjoy
their victory over an opponent
that had endured something very
similar t o get here.
“That’s something else we’ve
kind of harped on,” Quinn said.
“Hey, if you can’t enjoy this, why
did w e come?”MEN’S HOCKEY
In battle of makeshift teams, Americans have upper hand
BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES
Canada watches as Ben Meyers scores for the United States. The Canadians could not o ffset the Americans’ speed and pace Saturday.UNITED STATES 4,
CANADA 2BY EMILY GIAMBALVObeijing — The Court of Arbitra-
tion for Sport will hear the case of
Russian figure skater Kamila Va-
lieva via video conference early
Sunday night in Beijing, and a
decision is anticipated Monday
afternoon, according to a state-
ment released by the court.
Valieva w ould be the gold med-
al favorite in the women’s i ndivid-
ual competition, which begins
with Tuesday’s short program, if
she is allowed to compete after
testing positive for a banned sub-
stance in December.
As Valieva continues to prac-
tice here, the head of the Russian
Olympic Committee called into
question the lengthy gap between
the collection of her sample and
the reporting of the positive re-
sult. Valieva, 15, provided a sam-
ple Dec. 25 d uring the Russian
national championships, and the
Swedish lab analyzing t he sample
did not report the result until
Tuesday after Valieva a nd the Rus-
sians won the figure skating t eam
event here.
The World Anti-Doping Agen-
cy’s handbook that outlines the
international standard for labora-
tories says the reporting of the
results from the A sample of a
drug test should occur within 20
days of receipt of the sample. (The
handbook d efines “days” as calen-
dar days, not business days, un-
less otherwise noted.) Yet this
WADA-accredited lab in Stock-
holm reported Valieva’s result
more than six weeks after it was
collected. It is unclear when the
lab received the sample.
The Russian Anti-Doping
Agency (RUSADA) issued a state-
ment saying the laboratory in-
formed the agency that “the delay
in analysis and reporting by the
Laboratory was caused by an-
other wave of covid-19, an in-
crease in illness among Labora-
tory staff and quarantine rules.”
Still, the president of the ROC,
Stanislav Pozdnyakov, cited
WADA’s 20-day time frame and
questioned the delay.
“It looks very strange that the
sample traveled from St. Peters-
burg to Stockholm for almost a
month,” Pozdnyakov told report-
ers, according to Russian news
agency Tass. “This raises very seri-
ous questions for me, and it looksvery much like someone was
holding this sample until the end
of the figure skaters’ team c ompe-
titions.”
Valieva’s sample contained the
banned substance trimetazidine,
which is designed for mostly older
people who have a condition
called angina that causes severe
chest pain because of inadequate
blood flow to the heart. The drug
could improve an athlete’s endur-
ance.
After RUSADA received Va-
lieva’s test results from the Swed-
ish lab, Valieva was briefly sus-
pended. Valieva challenged that
decision Wednesday, and a Rus-
sian anti-doping committee lifted
the suspension. The International
Olympic Committee and WADA
appealed t he lifting of the suspen-
sion, prompting an expedited
hearing before CAS. The ruling is
expected before the women’s i ndi-
vidual competition in Beijing.
“There will be a resolution of
this specific case, which is wheth-
er the suspension will be lifted or
not,” IOC spokesman Mark Ad-
ams said Saturday. “I’m certain of
that — as certain as I can be.”
Tr avis Tygart, the CEO of theU. S. Anti-Doping Agency, called a
delay of this length “unaccept-
able” and a sign of a “high level of
incompetence by RUSADA” in an
interview before the organiza-
tions disclosed the timeline of
events.
“This is a routine screen at the
lab,” Tygart said. “It’s a synthetic
substance t hat’s easy to detect. It’s
not like [erythropoietin, a hor-
mone that stimulates the produc-
tion of red blood cells] or human
growth hormone, where you need
some extra time or extra tests to
confirm it. It’s a p retty straightfor-
ward substance in that regard.”
However, there are past exam-
ples of doping sanctions with
timelines that do not dramatically
differ from Valieva’s case. The
sample of U. S. swimmer Madisyn
Cox, who also tested positive for
trimetazidine, was collected
Feb. 5, 20 18, with the lab report-
ing the result March 2. Recently,
American w eightlifter Ian Wilson
completed a doping test D ec. 2,
with a positive result prompting a
provisional suspension imposed
Jan. 5.
Valieva, the 2022 European
champion and Russian nationalchampion, entered these Olym-
pics as the favorite in the women’s
figure skating competition. Dur-
ing the team event, she became
the first woman to land a quadru-
ple jump at the Olympics. The
teenage star has not been avail-
able for interviews while the un-
certainty looms, but the issue c on-
tinues to reverberate in Beijing.
After competing in the ice
dance rhythm d ance c ompetition,
Russian skater Gleb Smolkin
stood with his arm around the
shoulder of dance partner Diana
Davis and tried, angrily, to chase
away questions about Valieva,
whose coach, Eteri Tutberidze, is
Davis’s mother.
After first telling a wire-service
reporter that “[Valieva] is with us
and cheering for us,” Smolkin,
speaking English, turned frosty a t
a follow-up question about Va-
lieva.
“No more questions about her,”
he said curtly. “You better change
your question or you’re done.”
Moments later, addressing a
mix of Russian, American and
British reporters, Smolkin tried
again to turn the topic away from
Valieva.“I’ve said already three times I
don’t want to talk about it,” Smol-
kin said. “I already said that we
wish Kamila all the best. She’s a
great skater, and she’s definitely
got a bright future. It doesn’t
matter what happened or what’s
going to happen.”
“Even if she doped?” an Ameri-
can reporter asked in English.
“I have no idea what’s going on,
all right?” Smolkin said, before
adding, “We’re done, okay?”
Later, Russian ice dancer Niki-
ta Katsalapov was asked whether
he thought the scandal around
Valieva’s test was bad for figure
skating. He p aused for a moment,
then replied: “It’s bad for every-
one, and certain situations
around the sport are really bad,
but I hope everything will be good
for Kamila.”
Katsalapov then was asked
whether Valieva was upset over
what is going on.
“Of course she is,” he replied.
“This situation is very strange.”Adam Kilgore and Les Carpenter in
Beijing, Gus Garcia-Roberts in Los
Angeles and Isabelle Khurshudyan in
Kyiv contributed to this report.Ruling in Valieva case expected Monday as o∞cials question test turnaround
have a slim edge over pairs from
the ROC (Alexandra Stepanova
and I van Bukin with a 84.09), Can-
ada (Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier
with a 83.52) and Italy (Charlene
Guignard a nd Marco F abbri with a
82.68).
The United States has medaled
in ice dance at e ach of the past four
Olympics and will count on these
two strong pairs to maintain that
streak. Since the 20 18 Pyeong -
Chang Games, these tandems
have bounced the U.S. national
title back a nd forth.
The U. S. s treak of O lympic med-
als started in 2006 with Tanith
Belbin and Benjamin Agosto’s sil-
ver. That d uo “started to open up a
door of putting U.S. ice dance on
the map,” said Jean-Luc Baker,
who, with his partner Kaitlin Ha-
wayek, is in 11th place after the
rhythm dance.
Both of the top U. S. duos en-
tered these Games four years a fter
Olympic disappointments: Hub-
bell and Donohue slipped to
fourth after errors in their free
dance in 20 18. Chock and Bates
had a stunning collapse to the ice
and f inished ninth.
Hubbell said she entered the
PyeongChang Games believing
what she described as Olympic
cliches — that medaling is “life-
changing” and fourth p lace is “the
worst.” When she tells othersabout her result that just missed
the podium, they seem to believe
in the agony of fourth, too. She
cried a bout i t for t wo days b ut then
assured herself that fourth was
better than fifth, sixth and all the
other places. Now she feels proud
of the result and all she and
Donohue have accomplished
since.
Hubbell and Donohue have
said this will be their last competi-
tive season, and when they fin-
ished their rhythm dance,
Donohue let out a yell of excite-
ment. They try to downplay the
significance of the moment, but
“there is a certain hype that comes
from being on an Olympic stage,”
he said a fter the p erformance t hat
went about as well as they had
hoped.
They talk about their connec-
tions with one another more than
the medals — even as t he possibili-
ty of earning one looms in the
coming days. But as the team that
sat in t hird ahead of the free d ance
at the Olympics four years ago,
they also know how the standings
can shuffle with a mistake.
Since then, “we’ve continued to
push our boundaries and here we
are — and hopefully walking away
this time with a medal,” Hubbell
said, “but no matter what, already
with a completely different, more
beautiful Olympic experience.”BY EMILY GIAMBALVObeijing — Madison Chock and
Evan Bates arrived here as the
national champions from a coun-
try that’s on a run of producing
Olympic medalists in ice dancing.
They started their quest toward
the podium by spinning and skat-
ing in unison t o the music of Billie
Eilish. With Chock in a sparkly
lime green dress and her partner’s
black j acket s howing flashes o f the
same color on the inside, they
performed well but not their best
— mostly b ecause o f a slip during a
compulsory p attern that C hock a t-
tributed t o skating into a rut in t he
ice.
As Chock explained her one
clear mistake in the r hythm dance
portion of the competition — and
after Bates offered assurance that
their skate wasn’t “that bad, obvi-
ously” — a television screen be-
hind her showed fellow Ameri-
cans Madison Hubbell and Zacha-
ry Donohue waiting to hear their
score. Chock glanced back as the
new standings appeared on the
screen. Hubbell and Donohue’s
mark of 87.13 overtook Chock and
Bates for third place heading into
Monday’s free d ance.
These duos, who have for years
battled f or ice dancing supremacy
in the United States, each have
medal potential in Beijing. But
there might not be room on the
podium f or both.
“It’s certainly familiar territory
for u s,” Chock said. “This i s a rival-
ry that we've had for the past 11
years, so it feels like i t's always felt.
They're strong competitors, a s are
we. I t's just whoever p erforms b est
on the day.”
On Friday, that was Hubbell
and Donohue, who won the silver
medal at the most recent world
championships but have never
won an individual medal at the
Olympics. They h ave a three-point
cushion over Chock and Bates
(84.14) with one day of competi-
tion remaining.
Ice dance, which doesn’t fea-
ture the side-by-side jumps or the
throws of pairs skating, is more
predictable than the other disci-FIGURE SKATING
U.S. ice dancing duos face o≠
for long-awaited podium spot
plines because competitors are
less l ikely to splat o nto the ice. And
here, two medal favorites have al-
ready t aken hold of the top spots.
France’s Gabriella Papadakis
and Guillaume Cizeron, who are
four-time world champions, had
the t op mark o f the evening with a
90.83. The 2018 Olympic silver
medalists delivered a mesmeriz-
ing performance, combining flu-
idity w ith o ccasional s harpness as
they skated p erfectly in sync wear-ing matching b urgundy.
The Russian Olympic Commit-
tee’s Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita
Katsalapov, the reigning world
champions, also shined with an
88.85. Those s trong performances
left t he top Americans fighting for
the third position. Barring mis-
takes from the French and Rus-
sian duos, that battle for third
could repeat itself in the free
dance but with other pairs in the
mix, too. Chock and Bates onlyDAVID RAMOS/GETTY IMAGES
Evan Bates and Madison Chock are in fourth place behind Madison
Hubbell and Zachary Donohue heading into Monday’s free dance.