VIRTUE AND MOIR STRIKE DOUBLE GOLD, SAVCHENKO AND MASSOT HIT NEW HEIGHTS
CANADA’S TESSA VIRTUE AND SCOTT MOIR LEFT PYEONGCHANG 2018 WITH THE FIGURE SKATING TEAM AND ICE DANCE TITLES UNDER THEIR BELTS, TAKING THEIR OLYMPIC MEDAL TALLY TO A RECORD FIVE, INCLUDING THREE GOLDS. IN THE PAIRS COMPETITION, GERMANY’S ALJONA SAVCHENKO AND BRUNO MASSOT SET A NEW WORLD RECORD IN THE FREE PROGRAMME TO CLAIM AN UNEXPECTED GOLD.
Making its second appearance on the Olympic programme at PyeongChang 2018, the team competition is an event in which the ten qualifying nations field their best skaters in women's and men's singles, pairs and ice dance, with the points they each score being added together to provide a combined total for each team.
Skaters earn points based on their rankings in each event. The top-ranked athlete(s) collect 10 points, the second best nine, and so on. Only the top five ranked teams after the short programmes go on to contest the medals in the free programmes. The team scoring the highest overall total wins the gold.
The competition began on the day of the Opening Ceremony, with Shoma Uno giving Japan an early lead in the men's short. Though Olympic Athlete from Russia (OAR) duo Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov scored the maximum 10 points in the pairs short, it was Canada who led the way at the end of day one with 17 points, thanks to Patrick Chan's third place in the men's and Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford's second place in the pairs. The OAR team lay second with 15 points, followed by the USA with 14 and Japan with 13.
Canada's flagbearers at the Opening Ceremony, Virtue and Moir extended their team's lead in the ice dance short the following day, before Team OAR skater Evgenia Medvedeva scored ten points for her team in the women's singles short, at which point the top five ranked teams (Canada, Team OAR, USA, Italy and Japan) moved forward to the free programmes. Duhamel and Radford secured ten more points for the Canadians in the pairs free to give them a total of 45 at the end of day two of the competition, four more than Team OAR in second, with the USA five points further back in third.
Patrick Chan gave leaders Canada the perfect start to the final day of the competition, landing his first two quadruple jumps en route to amassing 179.75 points for his free routine and another ten for his team. Gabrielle Daleman's third place in the women's free then secured the gold for the Canadians, even before Virtue and Moir returned to the ice for their free skate. With no pressure on them, the ice dance duo revelled in the moment, producing a masterful routine to pick up a maximum ten points yet again and take their team tally to 73 points.
USA siblings Maia and Alex Shibutani placed second behind them to help their team claim the bronze with 62 points, four behind Team OAR, for whom the 15-year-old Alina Zagitova, the recently crowned European champion, scored ten with a superlative free programme.
MORE INFO AT: https://www.olympic.org/news/virtue-and-moir-strike-double-gold-savchenko-and-massot-hit-new-heights
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