US Ice Skater Vincent Zhou Will Not Skate at 2022 Olympics After A Positive COVID-19 Test

In an unfortunate turn of events, Vincent Zhou will not be able to compete in the Men’s ice skating events at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

The 21-year-old athlete, who came in second at the 2022 US National Championships just last month, has tested positive for COVID-19.

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Vincent had been scheduled to compete in the men’s short program on Tuesday morning in Beijing, and needed to test negative twice to participate in the event.

“Olympic silver medalist Vincent Zhou announced tonight that he will be unable to compete in the men’s competition at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games due to testing positive for COVID-19,” a spokesman for U.S. Figure Skating said in a statement.

Additionally, an alternate is not able to take over that third spot for the US Olympic team, because Vincent withdrew too late in the process.

Vincent addressed the heartbreaking news in a video to fans on Instagram, saying that “it seems pretty unreal that of all the people, it would happen to myself, and that’s not just because I’m still processing this turn of events but also because I have been doing everything in my power to stay free of covid since the start of the pandemic.”

While his Olympic experience has been a mix of sad notes, there is one happy thing that did come from it – being named a silver medalist with the US team for the Team Event over the weekend.

He shared that he’d “already lost count of the number of times I cried today. At least one of those times was happy tears and that was when I found out that I became an Olympic silver medalist and I think that wraps things up nicely on a positive note.”

Nathan Chen and Jason Brown will rep the US for the Men’s Ice Skating events later this week.