Day 7 of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics

Chinese fans on social media are outraged that Canadian snowboarder Max Parrot won gold in Monday's slopestyle competition, beating out 17-year-old Chinese snowboarder Su Yiming. 

As of Friday, a hashtag about the issue had garnered more than 670 million views on China's leading social media platform Weibo, with fans arguing that Su should have been Olympic champion.

Dispute over points: Parrot was awarded the winning score of 90.96 in his second run, while Su won silver with 88.7. However, unknown to the judging panel at the time, the Canadian grabbed his knee instead of his board during a trick — an error that should have resulted in a points deduction. 

While it is difficult to know if Su would have come out on top, Sumatic acknowledged “the score might have been different.”

“It’s been very tough, there were a lot of hateful comments,” he added, referring to the backlash from fans.

Su's response: Despite the controversy, Sumatic said he received a call after the event from the Chinese snowboarder and his coach, saying they were happy with the result and “totally respect” the judges' decision.

The Russian Anti-Doping Agency’s (RUSADA) decision to lift a provisional suspension on figure skater Kamila Valieva following a doping violation is being appealed by the International Olympic Committee IOC), the International Testing Agency (ITA) confirmed Friday. 

The case will be heard by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), with a decision needed by Tuesday, ahead of the Russian figure skating star’s next event. 

The 15-year-old’s future and the Russian Olympic Committee’s (ROC) gold medal in the figure skating team event on Monday now hangs in the balance.

Here's what we know about the drug test timeline:

A complicating factor in Valieva’s case is that her test sample was collected ahead of the Winter Games, which meant any decisions concerning the initial provisional ban fell outside of the IOC’s jurisdiction. 

The delay between Valieva’s initial test in December and her result in February was not addressed by the ITA. 

What is Trimetazidine? The banned substance is used to treat people with angina —sudden pains to the chest, jaw and back brought on by physical effort. It is listed in WADA's list of prohibited substances under the category of “hormone and metabolic modulators," banned due to evidence of athletes using them for performance enhancement.

American alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin said after her super-G competition on Friday it was "a really big relief" to have completed her run — but also highlighted the mental health toll that comes with being a top athlete on the world stage, with every mistake magnified.

"There's a lot of disappointment over the last week. There's a lot of emotions. (It was) not really easy to reset and know if I was up for the challenge today," said Shiffrin, who crashed out of her first two events earlier this week. The super-G was the first event she has completed in the Games so far.

She felt more settled once she arrived at the course today, and tried to focus on the race — where she placed ninth. Though it's far from the gold medal she had hoped to achieve, she said: "I just skied strong, and it's a really big relief to be here now in the finish, having skied a run well."

On the mental health challenge: She also spoke on the mental toll of her sport, and how "it's a little obsessive."

Last night, she kept dreaming she crashed again in the super-G and skied out on the fifth gate, she said. She would wake up, go back to sleep, and keep dreaming of failure.

For followers of freestyle skiing and fashion alike, the buzz surrounding Winter Olympian Eileen Gu at this year's Games has come as little surprise.

The 18-year-old's gold medal performance in the big air competition thrust her into the global spotlight Tuesday, sparking such a furor in China that social media platform Weibo crashed under the weight of interest. But Gu has spent years establishing herself as both a top athlete and a hugely bankable model who appeals to brands in both Asia and the West.

In 2021, as she won gold medals at the skiing World Championships and Winter X Games, Gu was also forging lucrative partnerships with fashion houses and luxury labels. Signing for IMG Models, the agency representing Bella Hadid, Kate Moss and Hailey Bieber, she has penned deals with Louis Vuitton, Victoria's Secret and Tiffany & Co., as well as the luxury Swiss watchmaker IWC and cosmetics brand Estée Lauder, among others.

In fact, the California-born athlete is among the most heavily sponsored athletes at these Olympics. She arrived in Beijing with more than 20 commercial partnerships, ranging from Beats by Dre headphones to Cadillac.

But it is Gu's mass appeal in China, where she is known by her Chinese name Gu Ailing and has been nicknamed the "Snow Princess," that makes her especially valuable to brands.

Having switched her sporting allegiance to her mother's home country in 2019, Gu's fluency in Mandarin has helped secure her place on Chinese TV ads, billboards and even milk cartons (as the face of Inner Mongolia-based Mengniu Dairy). E-commerce giant JD.com, cafe chain Luckin Coffee and telecoms firm China Mobile are among the growing list of mainland brands that she's modeled for in recent months.

China is on track to become the world's largest luxury market by 2025, according to consulting firm Bain. The Asian edition of marketing and advertising industry magazine Campaign estimated that new endorsements there could be earning the athlete around 15 million yuan ($2.5 million) apiece — and that was before her gold-medal success.

Editor's Note: A version of this story appeared in CNN's Meanwhile in China newsletter, a three-times-a-week update exploring what you need to know about the country's rise and how it impacts the world. Sign up here.

Controversy surrounding a drugs test reportedly taken in December, that has only come to light during the Winter Olympics in Beijing, continues to delay the medal ceremony of the figure skating team event, which was won by the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC).

But what is trimetazidine, the banned substance at the heart of the controversy?

According to the European Union's medicines agency (EMA), trimetazidine "is a medicine used to prevent angina attacks, which are sudden pains to the chest, jaw and back brought on by physical effort, due to reduced blood flow to the heart."

It is listed in the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) 2021 prohibited substances under the category of "hormone and metabolic modulators," a class of drugs that have been banned by WADA due to evidence of athletes using them for performance enhancement.

"This is an interesting choice to be used in this way because I think a lot of times, people might think: to enhance your performance, you'd use a stimulant or something that would increase your heart rate or get your metabolism going," Dr. Elizabeth Murray, pediatric emergency medicine physician at the University of Rochester Medical Center, told CNN on Thursday.

"An athlete wouldn't get jittery or necessarily feel all that different, but they would theoretically be able to perform at a higher level for longer. It would increase their endurance, potentially."

It's been used by athletes before: The most famous case of doping involving trimetazidine is Chinese swimmer Sun Yang, who was handed a three-month suspension in 2014 after testing positive for the drug.

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Trimetazidine: Drug banned by WADA makes 'your heart work more efficiently'

Switzerland's Lara Gut-Behrami won her first Olympic gold medal on Friday, finishing first in the women’s super-G event in alpine skiing. It’s the first super-G Olympic gold medal for any Swiss athlete, female or male.

Gut-Behrami, who won bronze earlier in these Olympic Games in giant slalom, now has three Olympic medals to her name. She also won bronze in downhill at Sochi 2014.

Silver goes to Mirjam Puchner of Austria, while Switzerland’s Michelle Gisin wins bronze.

Meanwhile, the Czech Republic’s Ester Ledecka — who shocked the sports world four years ago at the Pyeongchang Games when she won gold in both snowboarding and alpine skiing events — missed the podium Friday, finishing fifth. She did, however, defend her parallel giant slalom Olympic title earlier this week.

After starting the Olympics with two shocking DNFs (did not finish), American superstar skier Mikaela Shiffrin crossed the finish line for the first time in the Beijing 2022 Games, finishing ninth.

Social media users in Japan gushed over the heartfelt hug shared between Japanese snowboarder Ayumu Hirano, who won gold today at the halfpipe, and American icon Shaun White, who finished fourth in his last-ever Olympics.

One Twitter user said the hug made them cry, and appeared to represent the symbolic passing of the baton from a legend to an emerging star.

Another social media user alluded to how White and Hirano — athletes from different generations — had grown up competing alongside one another. 

While tweets in Japanese praising Hirano’s gold flooded Twitter on Friday, many also took to the platform to thank White for inspiring them to take up snowboarding.

Japanese snowboarder Ayumu Hirano said he had achieved "one of my childhood dreams" after winning gold at the halfpipe on Friday.

"It hasn't sunk in yet," the 23-year-old said.

After being dissatisfied with his first two runs, he dove into the third and final run, and "I did what I wanted to do right at the end," he said. He had been in silver medal position after the second run, trailing Australia's Scotty James — "but I managed to express my anger well at the end," he said.

The gold medalist also competed alongside his younger brother Kaishu Hirano, 19, who finished ninth and pulled off a massive jump meters into the air. "Us brothers making this stage and winning it myself was also great for both of us," Ayumu Hirano said.

He also paid tribute to five-time Olympian Shaun White, who ended his snowboarding career with a fourth-place finish at age 35.

In a statement on Friday, the International Testing Agency (ITA) that leads the anti-doping program for the Beijing Winter Olympics said 15-year-old skater Kamila Valieva had failed a drug test taken in December.

The sample was taken at the Russian Figure Skating Championships in Saint Petersburg on Dec. 25, but it took until Feb. 8 for a laboratory in Sweden to report it had detected a banned substance — one day after the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) won gold at the team even in Beijing.

Valieva was immediately given a provisional suspension by Russia's anti-doping agency, which automatically prohibits athletes from participation in all sports.

Valieva challenged the suspension on Feb. 9 and at a hearing that same day, the Russian anti-doping agency decided to lift the provisional ban — allowing her to continue competing at the Olympics, according to the ITA statement.

The ITA added that since the sample was collected by the Russian agency ahead of the Games, the case was not within the jurisdiction of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and not managed by the ITA. However, the IOC has the right to appeal the decision to lift her suspension — which it and the ITA are now doing.

So who won the team event? Though the ROC team won gold, it remains unclear if the drug test controversy could see the medal revoked. "The decision on the results of the ROC team in the Team Figure Skating event can be taken ... only after a final decision on the full merits of the case has been taken," the ITA statement said.

Is Valieva allowed to compete? This is also yet undetermined, though she has been seen training on the rink since the scandal broke. If allowed to continue competing, Valieva is tipped to win the women's figure skating event next week.