Yuzuru Hanyu (JPN) Dominates Men's Short Program

Team Standings After Pairs Short Program

Team USA ended the night in seventh place, tied with three other teams with 10 points.  The U.S. has a chance to move up from the middle of the pack with the Ladies Short Program and Dance Short Dance which will be skated on Saturday.

Given the relative strengths of the countries in the Ladies and Dance categories, Team U.S. looks like it can gain some distance on Germany, France and China, with a place in the top four after the short programs achievable.  Team USA must finish in the top five in order to advance to the final round skating of the Free programs.

Ashley Wagner will skate the Ladies Short Program and Meryl Davis & Charlie White the Short Dance for Team USA.  The team would probably be better served by having Gracie Gold skate the short, but Wagner needs some experience in front of the judges after her dismal result at U.S. Nationals, which may be the thinking in the announced selection.

(7 February 2014)  Figure skating competition at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games started off with a bang with the inaugural Team Event Men's Short Program and Pairs Short Program.  Patterned on the World Team Trophy which has been contested twice before in Japan, the Olympic Team competition has skaters from ten countries competing for the first Olympic Team Championship.  Team Canada presented a confident face coming into the games, and their confidence was vindicated in performances by Patrick Chan and pair team Meagan Duhamel & Eric Radford.

Interest in the Team Men's Short Program was also heightened by the participation of Evgeni Plushenko.  Controversy has swirled around his appearance in the games due to his long comeback struggle, and the conditions under which he was ultimately named to the Russian team at essentially the last moment following a test skate.

The start order in the Team short programs is set by inverse world rankings, and due to his limited competition record the past two seasons, Plushenko skated fourth in the first of two warm-up groups.  His planned content was the same as Yuzuru Hanyo, who skated last, though with the significant difference that Plushenko front loaded his program with the three jump elements executed sequentially, giving up the 10% bonus for jumps executed in the second half of the program.

In practice Plushenko looked underwhelming, but in his short program performance he looked closer to his former self.  His three jump elements were solid though not as polished as in years passed, as was even more so the case for his spins.  Still, his technical scores and GoEs were competitive with the top skaters.

On the component side, he received marks that averaged 8.64, which we found generous.  His interpretation of "tango de Roxanne" what cliché in our view, and his transitions nothing special, and missing in many places.  A few judges agreed with us, with one going as low as 4.50 for Transitions.  The marks look to us like reputation judging and political maneuvering remain entrenched in the scoring.

Plushenko ended the night with a second place finish, earning Team Russia 9 event points.

On his performance he said, "Actually it was difficult, believe me it is so difficult skating an Olympics at home because many people are here, waiting fro something incredible. ... You need to concentrate, And today - wow, it was so difficult skating today.  I skated very welll I think, to me I skated good.  But I must fight a few days more. ... I am happy with everything.  I finally did a clean program.  I did my quad toe - triple toe so I am happy."

The U.S.'s Jeremy Abbott missed his quad toe loop which was under-rotated and he popped his triple Axel to a single.  He displayed good skating skills with decent speed and transitions in a generally passionless performance to "Lillies of the Valley." He placed seventh out of the ten men.

In the second warm-up group, China's Han Yan, (skating second) opened with a huge triple Axel, followed by a successful quad toe loop, though three of the nine judges found it flawed in some respect.  His jump combination consisted of a clean triple Lutz with a triple toe loop with a slightly flawed landing.  The judges were in better agreement on this element, with eight of nine giving negative GoEs.  He skated with decent speed to "Minor Walts" and "Viper's Drag" with a bright interpretation and nice transitions, though with a few holes in the first 1/3 of the program.  His compnents averaged near 8 and he ended the the night fourth in the Short Preogram.

Patrick Chan skated fourth in the second warm-up group, and nerves seemed to get the best of him.  He left his quad toe loop - triple toe loop in the warm-up, and landed quad toe loop - double toe loop instead.  He stepped out of the subsequent triple Axel, and then settled down, though he still appeared a bit off and not really in command of the performance. He displayed good skating skills and Transitions, but it was a pretentious performance to "Elegy in E Flat Minor" in our view.

"It wasn't the best obvioulsy," he said, "but I've learned that I enjoy what I do.  The crowd was great anbd I could feel the energy out there.  That's why I do this.  Winning and getting a medal would be great but, at the end of the day, It's not why I'm out there."

The best was saved for last, in a dazzling performance by Yuzuro Hanyu.  All his elements were clean and strong, from his opening quad toe loop, through a strong triple Axel and clean Triple Lutz - triple toe loop.  He was the only skater to put two jump elements in the second half of the program.  His component's averaged 9.08, 0.25 Program Component Score points behind Chan.  Hanyu started the night viewed as a contender for a medal in the Men's event.  He ended the night the favorite for the gold.

"Ifelt a lot of pressure out there," he siad, "but now that I've got a taste of what it feels like, I should be able to handle the pressure in singles much better."  I was gald I was able to give it everything I had for Japan," he added.  "I outdid myself.  I want to give myself a pat on the back tonight."

Russian Pair Cements Reputation as Favorite for the Pairs Championship

The Team Pairs Short Program was dominated by Russia's Tatiana Volosozhar & Maxim Trankov who skated a superb routine to the Waltz from "Masquerade."  They left no doubt they are the team to beat in the Pairs event and any other team with illusions for the gold has a rough road ahead next week.

The Russian's elements were all clean and strong with all but four GoEs 2s and 3s.  Their components averaged 9.67 with twelve marks of 10.0.

Trankov said, "We skated very carefully today.  We wanted to show all our emotions and all our strengths on the ice and concentrate on completing our elements.  I think we managed this very important task and we are happy we have put Russia into first place in this event for the first time in the Olympic Games."

More than 10 points back, Canadian's Meagan Duhamel & Eric Radford placed second.  It was a clean performance that was strong in both technical elements and presentation, though not in the same class as the Russians.  After ther performance Radford said, "It was amazing.  Everything about it.  It all just happened.  Our goal was to be top two."  He added, "That was a skate like we did in training.  We just put ourselves in a little bubble.  We had high expectations."

A clean performance was also given by Cheng Peng & Hao Zhang, of China.  Coming into the competition with a lower ranking than the favorites, they skated last in the first warm-up and gave a season's best performance.  Their triple toe loops, triple twist and throw triple loop were all extraordinary.  They ended the night 2.09 points behind the Canadians.

Stefania Berton & Ondrej Hotarek earned Team Italy seven team points with a third place finish.  They also skated a season's best performance with well executed elements and program components that averaged 7.97.  Their performance to music from "The Mask" better than average with a reasonable attempt to interpret the music, but was too slow for the choice of music.

Team USA's Marissa Castelli & SImon Shnapir skated first in the second warm-up and achieved a sixth place result.  Castelli had a poor landing on triple Salchow for which the team received GoEs of -2 and -3.  The other elements were cleanly executed and their components averaged 7.32.

Said Shnapir after their skate, " We had a few mistakes on the jumps but this was our first time out on Olympic ice and we're excited to do it again."  In looking ahead to the pairs event next week he said, "It was partly like a warm-up.  We've got this unique opportunity to skate more than once and now it's just about executing what we've trained so long for.