Madison Chock, front, along with herband and ice dance partner Evan Bateswere among the U.S. figure skaters to receive their gold medals from the Beijing Olympics on Wednesday in Paris. Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press

PARIS – They stepped from the shadows of one of the Olympics’ most embarrassing scandals and into the sun at a place called Champions Park late Wednesday afternoon. It had been 2½ years since the nine members of the U.S. figure skating team had won medals at the Beijing Olympics and finally, after endless court appeals related to a Russian doping incident, they were about to get gold medals.

Vincent Zhou looked down from the Trocadero at the stage, the Eiffel Tower across the Seine and the thousands of fans in the stands, likely there to see gymnasts getting their medals, and all he could think was: “They must be wondering why there are winter athletes here?”

The seemingly endless saga of Russian figure skating star Kamila Valieva’s positive test for a banned substance before the 2022 Beijing Games came to a conclusion at 5:06 p.m. local time, when the first gold medal was draped around skater Karen Chen’s neck. A few minutes later, the “Star Spangled Banner” played. The silver medal team from Japan clapped, and the two teams walked away to polite if confused applause with their Beijing medals on red ribbons with the subtle pink and lavender of the Paris Games.

Russia, the original winners of the team competition who dropped to bronze as a consequence of the Valieva scandal, was not there, undoubtedly confusing the crowd even more as to why just two teams were receiving medals.

“We grew up dreaming of winning an Olympic gold medal but not in 90-degree weather,” ice dancer Evan Bates said, laughing.

But as much as Wednesday was about a ceremony many of the skaters never thought they would get, there was a bigger sense of accomplishment among them – not for what they did on the ice in China so much as for the sense that they stood up to Russia and doping they believe has damaged the sport.

“I think today is a victory for clean athletes everywhere,” Bates’s wife and ice dance partner Madison Chock said. “You have to trust the process. It doesn’t happen for everyone. Some athletes have to wait longer than 2½ years.”

Asked whether he felt Wednesday was a victory over doping, Zhou replied, “Absolutely. And I feel privileged because there are other people who deserve and won’t get it.”

The Valieva saga started a day after the 2022 team competition, when Olympic officials were notified she had tested positive for the heart medication trimetazidine at the Russian championships in December 2021. Trimetazidine (or TMZ) is usually prescribed to elderly patients with heart conditions but is used by athletes to aid recovery and increase stamina.

The notice came hours before the team event medals were to be handed out at a formal ceremony. IOC officials decided to cancel the ceremony and hold onto to the medals until Valieva’s case was resolved. At first, it seemed the delay might last a few days, but it soon got caught in the bureaucracy of the anti-doping and appeals process.

A World Anti-Doping Agency appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to suspend Valieva immediately was dismissed, and the Russian Anti-Doping Agency took close to a year to investigate her case, finally ruling she had committed a violation but bore no fault because it was – in RUSADA’s view – an accidental contamination.

WADA appealed that ruling to CAS, asking that Valieva be suspended for four years dating from her Dec. 25, 2021, test. In January of this year, CAS upheld WADA’s suspension. The next morning, the International Skating Union recalculated the results of the competition, dropping Russia to third and promoting the United States and Japan to gold and silver. Valieva and Russia appealed the ISU decision to CAS, which rejected the appeal late last month, opening the way for Wednesday’s ceremony.

The American skaters have raged about the Valieva case for the past 2½ years, speaking out during national and world championships. In June 2023, on the 500th day after the Beijing team event, they gathered at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic museum to display the empty boxes that are supposed to hold their medals from those Olympics.

Now, those boxes will be filled.