Vincent Zhou.Photo: Jean Catuffe/Getty Images
Team USA’sVincent Zhouwill be unable to compete in the men’s individual figure skating competition after testing positive forCOVID-19over the weekend.
Zhou, 21, was scheduled to compete in the men’s short program on Tuesday morning in Beijing. He needed to test negative twice to participate in the event.
A U.S. Figure Skating spokesman tells PEOPLE Zhou cannot be replaced with an alternate as he had to withdraw too late in the process.
Zhou also posted a message on Instagram about testing positive, writing in the caption, “Hi friends, it would mean a lot to me if you could spare a few minutes and watch to the end. Thank you so much. I appreciate you all. ❤️.”
“It seems pretty unreal that of all the people, it would happen to myself,” he says, getting emotional in the Instagram clip. “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.”
Noting all the precautions he’s taking against COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, Zhou explains, “I’ve isolated myself so much that the loneliness I’ve felt in the last month or to has been crushing at times. The enormity of the situation, just the pain of it all is pretty insane.”
Calling it his “dream to medal on an Olympic stage,” Zhou notes that more than anything, though, he just wanted to skate. " If I didn’t love this I wouldn’t still be doing it. And I know I love this," he says, before transitioning to a message to his younger self.
Still, Zhou admits 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.”
Zhou was noticeably missing during the figure skating team event flower ceremony and photo op with teammates Nathan Chen, Karen Chen, ice dancers Madison Hubbell and Zach Donohue and Madison Chock and Evan Bates as well as pairs skaters Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier after the U.S. won silver.
The day before the results, Zhou had competed in the men’s free skate portion of the team event, helping secure the silver.
In his video, of the second-place team finish, Zhou says he’s “honored, grateful and humbled to call myself an Olympic silver medalist.”
To learn more about Team USA, visitTeamUSA.org. Watch the Winter Olympics, now, and the Paralympics, beginning March 4, on NBC.
source: people.com
