PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — Technically, Russia did not win its first gold medal at these Winter Olympics on Friday.

Strictly speaking, Alina Zagitova, the 15-year-old victor in women’s figure skating, competed as a neutral “Olympic Athlete From Russia.” At a medal ceremony later Friday, she watched the five-ringed Olympic flag being raised instead of the Russian flag and heard the Olympic hymn played instead of the Russian anthem.

But a nominal banning of Russia from the Olympics for operating a systematic doping scheme at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi was more of a semantic prohibition than a complete ban. One hundred sixty-nine Russian athletes were permitted to compete here. And there was no question which country Zagitova represented in winning gold with a score of 239.57 points as fans chanted her name and waved the Russian tricolor.