Ryan Ford|Detroit Free Press
After (roughly) 17 days and (exactly) 109 medal events, the 2022 Winter Olympics have wrapped up in Beijing. The United States finished fifth in total medals, with 25 — eight golds, 10 silvers and seven bronzes — and tied for fourth in golds (with Sweden and the Netherlands).
The 24th Winter Games brought a solid haul for athletes with ties to the state of Michigan, as well: Of the 40 we identified (plus a hockey GM and an assistant coach), 10 athletes (and one assistant coach) reeled in a total of 14 medals — two golds, eight silvers and four bronzes.
Some of the state’s youngest Olympians — Michigan hockey players Matty Beniers, Brendan Brisson, Kent Johnson and Owen Power — all came home empty-handed, but the oldest? Well, they did just fine, as you'll read below.
And so, before we run too close to the 2026 Winter Games, set for Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo in Italy, here’s the rundown on Michigan’s 2022 medalists.
JEFF SEIDEL: Nick Baumgartner of Iron River wins Olympic gold for the aged, running on heart and wisdom
AERIALS SKIING: How Zoe Kalapos' 2022 Olympic journey started in an Oakland County backyard
MITCH ALBOM: The Games were once cozy, quaint and snowy; what happened to Winter Olympics?
Evan Bates
The prize: Silver, figure skating team event.
Medal moment: An Ann Arbor native and Ann Arbor Huron and Michigan alumnus, Bates and his partner Madison Chock delivered the top performance — a tale of romance between an alien and an astronaut — in the ice dance free skate portion on the final night of competition to push the U.S. past Japan for second place overall.
Quotable: "We're celebrating silver," Bates said of finishing behind the controversial Russian team. "Winning a silver medal at the Olympic Games is an incredible achievement, and the fact that we all get a silver medal, the whole team — I'm so happy. I'm so happy."
Nick Baumgartner
The prize: Gold, mixed team snowboardcross.
Medal moment: Two days after the 40-year-old finished 10th in the individual event, the Iron River native and Northern Michigan alumnus paired with Lindsey Jacobellis, 36, in the new mixed-gender event. In the final, Baumgartner came in first, giving Jacobellis a slight lead, then watched her deliver gold with a late rally.
Quotable: “As an older athlete, it’s tough when the young kids start getting really fast and start trying to push you out and take what you want,” Baumgartner said. “To come out here and perform the way we did being the oldest two competitors is pretty cool.”
WELCOME HOME: Iron River hosts parade for hometown Olympic gold medalist Nick Baumgartner
Madison Chock
The prize: Silver, figure skating team event.
Medal moment: Chock, a Novi High and Schoolcraft College alumnus who trained with partner Evan Bates in Novi until 2018, earned her silver with a weirdly romantic run, graded tops in the ice dance free skate. The performance topped the eventual gold-winning Russians by a mere nine-tenths of a point.
Quotable: “I had heard the Russians’ (score) right before we skated and I was like ‘Oh, that’s such a hefty score,’” Chock told the Associated Press on the third night of the event. “And then it was like: ‘All right. Focus.'”
MORE FROM JEFF SEIDEL: Why a risky routine by US Olympic ice dancers might inspire acceptance
Zachary Donohue
The prize: Silver, figure skating team event; bronze, ice dance.
Medal moments: Donohue and partner Madison Hubbell, who trained at Detroit Skating Club before moving to Montreal in 2018, got the U.S. off to a hot start by winning the ice dance rhythm dance portion — with a score nearly 1.5 points higher than the second-place Russians — during the team event’s first night. Then, a week later, the duo’s rhythm dance performance gave them the margin for bronze over Bates and Chock, their longtime training partners.
Quotable: "There's no feeling like skating with the perfect partner," Donohue said after taking bronze, as the reality of the duo’s impending retirement sank in — their final event will be the world championships in March. "And I've been very fortunate to have that."
Sergei Fedorov
The prize: Silver, men’s ice hockey.
Medal moment: After defecting from Russia in 1990 to play for the Red Wings (with whom he had 400 goals and 554 assists from 1990-2003), the Hockey Hall of Famer was welcomed back as an assistant coach after half a season coaching in the KHL. (Though, technically, he coached for the Russian Olympic Committee following sanctions from doping violations in the 2018 Games.)
Did you know? Olympic gold is essentially the only major prize that has eluded Fedorov; a three-time Stanley Cup winner with the Wings, he won Olympic silver as a player in 1998 and bronze in 2002. He was also inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame in 2016.
Valtteri Filppula
The prize: Gold, men’s ice hockey.
Medal moment: The final gold medal awarded was also a first, as Finland, in its 19th Winter Olympics, finally took home hockey gold. The Finns’ opening-ceremony flag-bearer, who spent two stints in Detroit (2005-13, 2019-21), including winning a Stanley Cup in 2008, put in the minutes to make it happen, averaging 16:26 of ice time over six games. That includes the team-high 18:20 in the gold-medal game.
Quotable: "It is hard to put in words what it means. What a tough tournament. I felt like we played well the whole time, and this is the reward," Filppula said. "Hockey's a big thing in Finland. This is for all of us, for sure."
Madison Hubbell
The prize: Silver, figure skating team event; bronze, ice dance.
Medal moment: After partnering with Donohue for more than a decade, Hubbell, a Lansing native who grew up in Okemos and trained in Detroit for years, grabbed a pair of medals in her final Olympics. The duo finished fourth four years ago in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Quotable: "When we move our best, we're not thinking about matching. We just match," Hubbell said after their bronze in ice dance. "We speak to each other through the program, with the way that we're touching, the way that we're looking at each other."
Tomas Jurco
The prize: Bronze, men’s ice hockey.
Medal moment: Jurco played just 7:24 in the Slovaks’ 4-0 win over Sweden in the bronze-medal game, earning the first-ever Olympic hockey medal for his home country. For the tournament, the former Red Wing and Grand Rapids Griffin (2013-17) had a goal, an assist and a minus-2 rating while averaging a little over 14 minutes of ice time in seven games.
Quotable: "I don’t know how we’re going to celebrate but for sure it will be long," forward Kristian Pospisil said after the medal ceremony. "It means a lot for the whole country not just for ice hockey in Slovakia."
Megan Keller
The prize: Silver, women’s ice hockey.
Medal moment: No American logged more time than the Farmington Hills native and North Farmington alumna, who averaged 25:11 over seven games. That included 29:16 in the U.S.’s loss to Canada in the gold-medal game. They were productive minutes, too, as Keller had four assists and, at plus-8, was the only U.S. player to finish in the top 14.
Quotable: "She's one of the most dynamic women's hockey players in the world right now,” said Joel Johnson, coach of the U.S. women,before the gold-medal game. “When you watch her play, the way she controls the ice with the puck or without the puck as a defenseman, she is pretty spectacular.”
JEFF SEIDEL: USA women's hockey's best bet vs. Canada? Don't let Megan Keller leave the ice
Elana Meyers Taylor
The prizes: Silver, women’s monobob; bronze, two-woman bobsled.
Medal moment: The multi-sport athlete – she played softball for the Mid-Michigan Ice, a pro team based in Midland, in 2007 – turned in her fastest monobob time on the fourth and final run to claim silver, then won her fourth career medal in the two-woman with four straight third-place runs.
Quotable: “I’m going to tell him that his mama fought like she’s never fought before to go after her dream, to just do everything she could to bring this medal home for him,” Meyers Taylor said, explaining what she’d tell her infant son about being named the U.S. flag-bearer for the opening ceremony (which she missed due to COVID quarantine) and the closing ceremony.
Abby Roque
The prize: Silver, women’s ice hockey.
Medal moment: One of just eight U.S. players making their Olympic debut, the Sault St. Marie native and Sault Area High alumna saw her ice time pick up as the tournament continued. She finished with four assists, a plus-4 rating and an average of 18:04 on the ice. She also finished ninth in faceoff percentage, claiming possession on 59.6% of her puck drops.
Quotable: “Basically my first thought was, this team isn’t gonna lose in the next four years,” Roque told an interviewer after the final loss to Canada. “We want to be the team on top, we want to lead the way going into the next Olympics. And I think that’s what we’re gonna try and train for. Yeah, we played probably not even, what, nine hours ago? But that’s what hockey is and that’s what our team is.”
Contact Ryan Ford at rford@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @theford.
