Pyeongchang, South Korea
Don’t cry for Katie Uhlaender. Cry with her. That’s what she’d want. Shed a couple happy tears. be proud of this American legend who spent the last two decades putting herself and her body through hell for a bite at an Olympic medal.
She had one, recently.
It was awarded to her after she was cheated out of it in Sochi, but never given. For just over two months, Uhlaender was destined to have bronze, those four-hundredths of a second she was shy at the 2014 Olympics were erased. At least for a while. After she landed in South Korea two weeks ago, making her fourth appearance as a women’s skeleton athlete, her phone lit up. The decision that finally gave her what she deserved was, somehow, astonishingly, reversed.
The Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) upheld several of the 28 lifetime bans issued by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) stemming from the Russian doping scandal from Sochi, but not the one who won bronze.
Not Elena Nikitina. She got to keep the bronze medal, with the CAS ruling that there was not enough evidence to revoke the medal. But Nikitina also was one of 47 athletes who appealed to participate in the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang and saw that request denied.
“Initially when the IOC took such a strong stance to ban Russia and strip the medals, it gave the athletes who were holding on to the spirit of sport, hope,” Uhlaender said here recently. “It strengthened our Olympic spirit.”
Then, the agonizing reminder.
The same reminder she’s had the past four years. The everyday thought that four-hundredths of a second separated her and the defining moment of her career. She’s smack-dab in the midst of this ongoing scandal, the main American athlete directly affected. In contrast, Uhlaender shared that during one World Cup season she was randomly selected for doping testing 19 different times.
“When CAS took that away, it did the opposite,” the Colorado native said, “so I think we’re all turning to the IOC for reform and to take a strong stance to give us that spirit back. We’re holding to an Olympic spirit that feels like it’s dying.”
Katie Uhlaender of United States finishes her third run during the women's skeleton competition at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Saturday, Feb. 17, 2018. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
Now 33, Uhlaender has been on the world skeleton stage since she was 20. She’s a two-time world championship gold medalist and a 12-time World Cup gold winner. She still rocks her trademark red hair, dyed before Sochi. She exudes a constant passion for her sport. Earlier this week she told herself this could be her last Games, to soak in the moments shooting around every corner at close to 80 miles per hour.
“I don’t plan on it being my last Games, but you never know,” she said. “This only comes once every four years, and these moments, even though this is my fourth Games, I really do cherish them.”
The Olympics needs more Katie Uhlaenders.
After 12 surgeries in 12 years and an auto-immune disease that nearly killed her in 2016, Uhlaender was zipping down the ice this week gunning for that medal. The bronze that was hers remains with Nikitina. Uhlaender found herself in 12th place after her first two runs. Her transparent personality let everyone in.
“I feel like I let everybody down,” she said late Friday. “That’s not where I expected at all, but maybe I can throw it down [Saturday] and see what I can do. Why would I come to the Olympic Games and give up? That’s not the plan.”
A troublesome start kept her, again, off the podium. There was too much ground to make up, and Uhlaender finished 13th overall. Last fall in Park City, in front of a large scrum of reporters, she said her goal was to change her own narrative entering these Olympics.
“I’m tired of being the sad story,” she said then.
In a way, she did. This is a racer for whom the most important finish line remains elusive, but this is also a tough-as-nails slider who continues to stare hypocrisy in the face and calls it like it is.
After the IOC stripped Nikitina and the other Russians accused of being involved with the extensive doping plot, Uhlaender was overwhelmed by the realization that she soon would be an Olympic medalist. There was talk at one point of reallocating some of the medals to Olympians here in Pyeongchang. This could’ve been a place Uhlaender finally got to wear the bronze she earned dangling near her heart.
Instead, she stepped off the track again, blowing kisses to the few fans lining the track cheering her name.
Near the starting line before her first run this week stood Uhlaender’s mom, who she said she hadn’t seen or heard from in four years. She knew she’d eventually see her here in South Korea — just not yet.
“She flew 7,000 miles to see me,” Uhlaender said. “I know she loves me and I love her.”
If this is it, she’ll be remembered as a trailblazer, not only for her longevity and battle scars picked up along the way, but for being the Olympic medalist without a medal.
