- Vincent Zhou missed his individual event at the Beijing
Winter Olympics due to contracting COVID-19. - After a week of isolation, he was released, only to be told he couldn't attend the closing ceremony.
Vincent Zhou's COVID-hit Beijing Winter Olympics had a final sting in the tail Sunday when he was forced to miss the closing ceremony after already missing his main event at the Games.
The American figure skater, who was forced to miss the men's singles event after testing positive for COVID, said on Instagram that he was about to board the bus to the National Stadium for the final extravaganza when he was told he had been identified as a close contact of someone with COVID.
That meant he was not allowed into Bird's Nest stadium for the official end of the Games.
"I won't be marching in the Closing Ceremony tonight," he wrote. "Before boarding the bus to the stadium, they flagged me as a COVID 'close contact' risk and would not allow me to proceed further.
"I have tested negative 14 times in a row. I have antibodies and am not contagious whatsoever. I am 100 percent healthy and normal. I am double masked and would be walking outdoors with the same people I am about to travel with in a couple hours. Out of everyone marching, I would be the least at risk of transmitting to others."
Zhou, 21, added that he was "required" to remove his mask when taking to the ice for the figure-skating gala earlier the same day.
"It seems that being double masked outdoors is riskier," he said, before going on to thank his teammates.
"It has been the honor of my life to represent Team USA at the 2022 Beijing Olympics alongside my incredible teammates," he said. "I am endlessly grateful for the opportunities that came my way during these games.
"I wish nothing but the best to everyone else marching tonight, especially my teammates. It makes me so happy and proud to know they are out there embodying everything Team USA represents and having the time of their lives."
Zhou initially tested positive for COVID just hours after the team figure-skating event, in which he helped the USA finish second behind the Russian Olympic Committee.
He and his teammates, however have yet to collect their silver medals, as the ceremony is being delayed because of the ongoing investigation into Russian skater Kamila Valieva's failed drug's test.
The medal ceremony for the team event was initially delayed due to what the International Olympic Committee called a "legal issue" involving Valieva.
Four days later, the International Testing Agency revealed that Valieva, 15, had tested positive for the prohibited substance trimetazidine while competing at the Russian national championships in Saint Petersburg in December.
She was cleared to continue competing in Beijing, but the IOC stated that medal ceremonies for events in which the teenager placed in the top three would be delayed until her case was fully resolved.
Speaking with The Washington Post shortly after his initial weeklong isolation period had ended, Zhou called the situation involving Valieva "scary."
"I'm proud to have competed clean my entire life," he said.
"And it definitely is a pretty shocking and scary situation we have going on here, where I would understand completely if the ladies didn't exactly trust the integrity of the competition and the fairness of everything."