Olympic medal redistribution ceremony finally gives Lashinda Demus and Erik Kynard their golden moment 12 years later

PARIS — There was no three-step podium. No American flag waving in the air. No sponsorship deals waiting. No packed stadium ready to roar. But there were, finally, gold medals around the necks of Lashinda Demus and Erik Kynard here at the Trocadéro on Friday — medals they earned 12 years ago.

Demus was a hurdler and Kynard a high jumper at the 2012 Olympics. They both won silver behind a Russian who was later found guilty of doping. After years of appeals and procedural delays, Olympic officials confirmed that they would finally receive their rightful gold medals.

What they wouldn’t receive, however, was a moment. They would join a long line of Olympians who have received retroactive medals at the office, in their personal lives, in the mail or even at a Burger King — “which I find extremely inappropriate,” Kynard said.

Demus did, too, so she fought. “I’ll be damned if that happens to me,” she said. She hired a lawyer. She aligned herself with the rightful silver and bronze medalists in her race. She lobbied the International Olympic Committee to get a moment, a celebration, media, “something on an international level.”

And she got a version of that on Friday, during the first-ever series of “medal redistribution ceremonies” at the Olympics.

The scene here at Champions Park, a daily Olympic fan festival open to the public, was at once emotional, healthy and strange. The ceremonies began with Beverly McDonald, now 54, once the fourth-place finisher in the 200-meter final at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, now the bronze medalist (due to the retroactive disqualification of Marion Jones).

Mostly one by one, athletes from seven different track and field and weightlifting events spanning 2000, 2004 and 2012 walked down a catwalk to a makeshift stage near where the 2024 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony had concluded. Several thousand fans stood and applauded. A video screen replayed highlights of the athlete’s more than decade-old feat. An announcer introduced them as a new, improved medal was draped around their necks.

For Kynard and Demus, the only two gold medal winners, the “Star Spangled Banner” played.

They turned to a video screen, which showed a stock photo of a waving American flag.

“It wasn’t quite what I wanted,” Demus said. “I wanted to be in the Olympic stadium.”

“But they came as close as they could to what I wanted,” she continued. “And I appreciate that and respect that.”

For the now retired medal winners, there were conflicting emotions. For years, without the gold medal they sought as athletes, some had struggled. Demus stopped watching track and field when her deteriorating body forced her to quit the sport. Retiring was the only way to get over the pain of her 2012 loss. A retroactive medal ceremony cannot retroactively change those years of her life.

It also can’t recoup the dollars lost 12 years ago in the gap between silver and gold. “I lost sponsorship deals, I lost bonuses, I lost — who knows,” Demus said. “If I add it up, I probably lost millions.”

There were bright spots, though. Several of the redistributed medalists brought their children to Paris, many of whom weren’t born in 2012 (or earlier). Kynard was accompanied by his two sons, ages 1 and 2. Demus took all four of her children — plus her mother, father, niece and two nephews — on a weeklong trip that was partially funded by the IOC and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. She launched a GoFundMe to make up the difference, raising a total of $21,750. “Thanks to your incredible support,” she wrote to those who donated, “my dream of going to Paris is turning into an even more magical experience.”

And on Friday, it was what she had hoped it would be — or at least what she had come to accept. Demus felt “proud.” She felt “celebrated.” She said it was “closure.”

It didn’t necessarily make up for having a medal taken away, for her or for anyone else. It was special, in part, because Demus had detached herself from “the disappointment, the pain, the sadness, or whatever I was feeling at the time,” she said. She and a few others, independently, saw it as a special opportunity they never thought they would have, rather than compensation for something that had been stolen.

Kynard, who was on hand during the Paris Games as high-performance director for USA Track and Field, was asked if he felt “complete” after that day.

No, he said, “I wouldn’t sum it up as making up for what I lost.” Rather, “it’s like I told a joke 12 years ago, and the world is only now beginning to understand.”