- [Vincent] There's always something new to be discovered every time you step out on the ice.

In skating, we are doing things that are on the edge of what's possible physically for humans.

- [Pamela] 22-year-old Olympic figure skater, Vincent Zhou, has been on the cutting edge of his sport since childhood.

He was the first to successfully land one of the most difficult jumps, a quadruple Lutz, at the 2018 Olympics.

We recently caught up with him at Brown's Meehan Auditorium where he makes it all look so easy.

- What you don't see is the hours and hours of pure physical training that we're doing.

It takes years and diligence and hard work to make just three or four minutes out there in front of the sparkling lights look perfect.

- [Rink Announcer] Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our next skater.

- [Pamela] Zhou began seeking perfection as a 5-year-old boy growing up as a first-generation Chinese American in California.

He quickly began compiling top awards.

- [Vincent] I was this fearless kid who would stack tables on top of tables and chairs on top of those tables, and then boxes on top of those chairs to get to the Lego box at the top of the bookshelf.

It's kind of the same thing later on.

(bright upbeat music) I'm stacking tools I have on top of each other to try and build a great foundation so I can reach the ultimate dream one day.

- [Pamela] Zhou came in sixth at the 2018 Olympics.

In 2022 in Beijing, he was a silver medalist in the team event.

- The moment I realized I was going to be an Olympic medalist was emotional and fulfilling in a way that's difficult to put into words.

Something that I sacrificed 17 years of my life for is finally being fulfilled and all that time, all the hardships and the struggles and all the small victories along the way.

- [Pamela] But taking silver would turn into a hollow victory tarnished by another team's substance use.

- The Russian doping scandal remains the biggest topic of conversation.

- It's now been confirmed that Kamila Valieva tested positive for a banned substance before the games started.

- [Pamela] After the team event, it was discovered that 16-year-old Russian skater, Kamila Valieva, tested positive for a banned drug.

Russia won gold, but the court of arbitration for sport is still deciding the case.

A year later, there's been no ceremony and athletes have no medals, just empty boxes.

- It feels like a slap in the face.

It's not just a slap in the face to me, it's an insult to the meaning of sport and to the meaning of Olympics.

The Olympics are the pinnacle of sport, fair sport, clean sport, a great event that symbolizes unity and peace.

And to have cheaters, to compete with people who dope, it's an insult to all the hard work that we've put in.

It invalidates all of that.

- [Pamela] If Russia is disqualified in the illegal substance review, Team USA will move to the top of the podium and take the gold medal.

Something Zhou says would help bring the sport back to a level playing field.

- It would feel like a step in the right direction in terms of the fight for clean sport.

- [Pamela] The doping controversy is not the only heartache Zhou had to face at the Olympics.

- Hey everyone, I have no idea how to start off this video properly, so I'm just gonna get started.

- [Pamela] The night before he was to skate in the men's competition, he tested positive for COVID.

- I will have to withdraw from the individual event.

- [Pamela] That spiraled into a dark time for him.

Zhou says he didn't want to go to the World Championships after the Olympics and considered a complete halt to skating.

- It was devastating for me.

It was like losing a loved one.

As soon as I got home from Beijing, then it actually hit me, that's when the full weight of what had happened actually settled in.

And then I just felt like an empty shell, like there was this vast chasm with nothing inside me.

I had no motivation to skate.

At one point my mom told me that it was okay to withdraw from Worlds.

It was okay to give up.

And that's something that I've never heard come out of her mouth because she's always been that tough love, iron-willed mother who's drilled perseverance and grit and never giving up into me since I was a kid.

And that kind of made me rethink it a little.

Would you be able to live the rest of your life knowing that you allowed yourself to give up in the most critical moment?

- [Pamela] And he didn't.

Zhou, with very little time for training, competed at the Worlds in France, making a comeback from COVID and winning bronze.

- I don't really believe in magic or all that, but it was like magic.

It was highly emotional.

It was basically the victory that I didn't get the chance to achieve at the Olympics.

- [Pamela] Zhou is now attending Brown University, majoring in economics and business.

- It's like starting over all again and having to be a beginner.

The motto is, in practice, beat yourself, in competition, be yourself.

So I just have to put myself into this completely different mindset of accepting that I'm a beginner and accepting that I have so much to learn.

- [Announcer] And as far as his future in skating, Zhou says he's conflicted about competing in the 2026 Olympics.

- I have three more years here at Brown.

I'll be studying full-time and you can't study full-time and train full-time, there aren't 48 hours in a day.

But there is a short window after that where, if I was extremely motivated to make a comeback and if I saw an opportunity, then it's possible.

- For those of us who will never know what it's like to be out on the ice with the grace and the speed and the strength, is it possible for you to describe that sensation?

- To me, skating is freedom and joy and passion encapsulated into one activity that can be so simple, yet so complex and so difficult, yet, so rewarding.

It's everything under the sun.

It feels like flying.

And when you land with just as much speed as you had going in, it's the best feeling in the world.

(bright gentle music) (bright gentle music continues)