The medal ceremony was postponed after it emerged that Valieva had tested positive more than a month earlier at the Russian Championships in Saint Petersburg.

More than a year after Valieva led the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) to the gold medal with an outstanding performance, medals still have to be awarded while her case goes through the legal process.

Skaters from the United States and Japan, who finished second and third behind the ROC, have grown frustrated by the delays, even though it could see them promoted to the gold and silver medal positions with Canada upgrading from fourth to bronze.

A ceremony that saw the first three teams awarded Beijing 2022 mascots was held at Capital Indoor Stadium, but medals will not be awarded until the Valieva case is concluded, probably at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Zach Donohue, who represented the US in the ice dance with Madison Hubbell, has claimed that the event has been ruined by the scandal surrounding the then 15-year-old Valieva, who tested positive for the stimulant trimetazidine.

"[There was] outrage and just disbelief, that this is still the situation," Donohue, who also won a bronze medal in the ice dancing event at Beijing 2022, told National Public Radio in the US.

"The Olympics represent something very special.

"It's a neutral playing field [where athletes] come and in front of the world, declare their hard work and their dedication and their determination and grit and their integrity of who they are as athletes.

"The decision being postponed for so long really detracts from the integrity of the Olympic image and the Olympic values.

“And I think it takes a lot away from the integrity that the majority of athletes choose, in the choices they make on an everyday basis of how they train, how they fuel, how they recover.

"So [the] conversation was a lot more than just one medal ceremony at stake here.

"[It's about] the way the world views the sport and the way the world views, specifically, figure skating.

"And that's something that is really in jeopardy."

Last month, the Russian Anti-Doping Agency Disciplinary Committee effectively cleared Valieva of a doping offence after they accepted her explanation that she had ingested the banned drug prescribed to her grandfather for a heart condition by mistake.

Earlier this month, U.S. Figure Skating posted a picture on social media of the Beijing 2022 team, including Donohue and Hubbell, along with Evan Bates, Karen Chen, Nathan Chen, Madison Chock, Brandon Frazier, Alexa Knierim and Vincent Zhou standing in front of the Olympic Rings with their empty medal presentation cases.

Japanese pairs skater Ryuichi Kihara joined the US in adding his sadness at the delay in the medal ceremony.

"It's a fact that we finished among the medalists," he told Japanese press agency Kyodo News.

“Without a medal, it doesn't feel real.

"It's a medal we earned through team effort, so I've been waiting for the day to celebrate with my teammates what we accomplished."

To read Duncan Mackay: A year to the day since insidethegames exposed Kamila Valieva doping case at Beijing 2022 click here.