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Slideshows
Individual Events
Valieva Crashes and Burns in Women Free Skate, Places Fourth
Shcherbakova
Takes Gold in ROC 1-2 Finish, Sakamoto Third
(18 Feb. 2022) In the most thorough collapse in our memory
of Olympic or World Championships, Kamila Valieva buckled under the immense
pressure heaped upon her in recent days, and fell out of the medals
(literally). Five of her jump elements were scored negative by the
judges, with two falls as well as jumps at the quarter, and with unders and downgrades for missing
rotations. A triple Salchow that was downgraded, received no credit as
it was executed in a sequence and not in combination.
Kamila Valieva ends her Olympic competition a sobbing mass of
despair.
Aleksandra Trusova gave the stellar performance of the night, getting credit
for five quads. One Lutz had a "q" call and one flip an edge alert (!).
She moved up from fourth in the short, to finish the competition with the
silver medal. After leaving event she vented her frustration about not
winning the gold after executing five quads, saying she hated the sports and
would never skate again. But had she not made a serious error in the short
program she indeed would have been Olympic champion. It is also
interesting ot note, that under the former method of combing the results of
the short program and free skate, she would have been Olympic champion. But
under IJS the free skate no longer has twice the importance of the short
program, only twice the potential number of points, which is a differnt
thing entirely.
Anna Shcherbakova gave an excellent performance and held on to win the gold.
The 2021 World Champion is now the 2022 Olympic Champion. Her
consistency in the short and long carried the day for her with two solid,
well skated performances.
Kaori Sakamoto gave a strong performance with only an edge attention on
triple Lutz. The quality of her elements was outstanding. As she
remarked in the post-even press conference, she does not have a triple Axel
or quads, and must get her points elsewhere by executing the highest quality
elements she can. Something she accomplished here for the bronze
medal.
Sakamoto's medal brought the Japanese total to four for figure skating, a
record for that county in one Olympics.
(16 Feb. 2022) Despite a near fall on her opening triple Axel, Kamila
Valieva scored first in the Women's Short Program. Despite the
remainder of the program being skated clean, Valieva left the ice in tears
at the end of her performance.
Anna Shcherbakova skated a clean program and sits 1.94 point behind the
leader. Kaori Sakamoto also skated a clean program and is 0.36 points
behind Shcherbakova.
Alexandra Trusova fell on an under-rotated triple Axel, and sits in fourth
place. She trails Sakamoto by 5.24 points. An ROC sweep remains
a possibility in the Women's event.
When Valieva was announced, and later at the end of her performance, the ROC
skaters and team officials in the audience cheered wildly as the U.S. skaters and team
officials sat nearby in stony silence, many with arms crossed, or looking at their
devices. You could sense the venom and the stink eye from 200 feet
away. The other ROC skaters received a similar reception.
After her performance Valieva walked through the mixed-zone and did not stop
for the usual post-performance questions. She also did not appear at
the post-segment press conference at the instructions of the Russian
federation. A statement from the IOC communications department was
read at the press conference which said, in part, that attendance at press
conferences was mandatory but not required. No explanation was
available for how something can be both mandatory and not required. At
ISU events attendance is mandatory and skaters who fail to appear are fined.
U.S. Skaters did not have a good night, with Karen Chen placing 13th, Mariah
Bell placing 11th and "skating is my hobby" Alysa Liu placing 8th.
(Yes, she actually said that at U.S. Nationals.) None of the three had
a clean skate.
CAS Clears Valieva to Compete in Women's Event
(14 Feb. 2022) In a ruling released today, the Court of Arbitration
for Sport (CAS) ruled that a provisional suspension will not be imposed on
Kamila Valieva, and she is cleared to compete in the Women's event, which
begins Tuesday at 6:00 PM Beijing time.
CAS did not rule on the merits of whether Valieva should be disciplined for
a drug doping violation, only on whether she should currently serve a
provisional suspension. That being the case, the IOC decided after the
ruling there would be no flower ceremony at the arena after the Women's
event and no medal ceremony at the medal plaza during the Games if Valieva
places in the top three of the event. In addition, medals will not be
awarded for the Team event during the Games. Thus, the IOC is signaling
that it believes disqualification of Valieva and Team ROC is still possible
and medals will not be finalized until after Valieva's case is fully
resolved.
Since a potentially disqualifiable Valieva may be taking up an entry in the
free skate, the IOC requested, and the ISU agreed, that if Valieva places in
the top 24 in the short program, 25 skaters will advance to the free skate.
How is it the Russian Women are so Good?
(12 Feb. 2022) Now we know. Drugs.
When your day is not going well, sometimes you just need a hug.
Nathan Chen Takes Lead in Men's SP, Yuzuru Hanyu's Olympic Career to End
with a Whimper
(8 Feb. 2022) Nathan Chen placed first in the
Short Program Tuesday morning at the Olympic Winter
Games Beijing 2022.
Chen broke his international-best score for the second time in Beijing with
a score of 113.97. His
“La Boheme” program broke the world record score by over two points.
“It means a lot to have the opportunity to come back to an Olympics and have
the opportunity to do short programs and have both go as well as I could
have hoped,” Chen said. “It means a lot to me and I’m very happy.”
Brown made his Beijing Olympics debut on Tuesday with a solid performance to
“Sinnerman.” His personal best 97.24-point Short Program featured a triple
flip and triple Lutz-triple toe loop combination. He earned Level 4 on all
his spins and his step sequence. He ended the day in sixth place.
“It has been an eight-year buildup of getting back to this point, and just
every single day trying to find that belief in myself and believe that I can
do it,” Brown said. “It was such an incredible moment.”
Vincent Zhou, who earned a silver medal in the team event, withdrew from the
individual men’s event after testing positive for COVID-19.
Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama is currently second with 108.12 points. Shoma Uno,
also representing Japan, is in third with 105.90 points.
Yuzuru Hanyu's Olympic career may end with a
whimper, after he popped his opening quad Salchow to a single and scored
only 95.15 points. He sits in eighth place, nearly 19 points behind
Chen, and nearly 11 points behind third place. He potentially can move
up several places in the free skate, but a medal finish now seems
challenging.
Vincent Zhou Tests Positive for Covid, Out of Men's
Event
(7 Feb. 2022) Vincent Zhou's daily PCR test for
Sunday came back positive, putting his appearance in the Men's event in
doubt. Zhou did his daily PCR test after the Sunday competition and
the result came back Monday morning. A confirming test was then done.
If the confirming test is negative he will be cleared to compete.
Athletes who have a confirming positive test are
taken to a Covid prison (isolation hotel) somewhere in the Beijing Covid
gulag (BOCOG Covid health care system). Athletes must remain in
isolation until they test negative on two tests 24 hours apart, with a Ct
value > 40. Athletes who test with Ct values between 35 and 40 can be
released from isolation after ten days of tests, is all are in the 35-40
range.
In China a PCR test is considered negative if the Ct
value is greater than 40. In the rest of the world the negative limit
is greater that 35.
(8 Feb. 2022) Confirming test is positive and Zhou is
out of the Men's event.
Team Event
(12 Feb. 2022) Five days after the
conclusion of the Team event, the awarding of medals remains on
hold while the doping case of ROC Team member Kamila Valieva
remains unresolved. Results of the Team Event are subject
to change should Valieva ultimately be suspended for doping.
If Team ROC is disqualified, Team USA would earn gold, Team
Japan Silver and Team Canada bronze.
ROC Team Jumps for Joy, Winning Team Gold
Team USA held on for the silver, its best result in
Olympic Team competition. Team Japan won bronze.
Japan entered the day three points behind the U.S.
In the Pairs free skate Japan made up some ground on the U.S. as well as in
the Women's free skate. But a stellar performance by Chock and Bates
in the free dance secured the silver medal for the U.S. by one point.
Kamila Valieva made history, getting credit for two
quads landed in Olympic competition. She fell attempting a third.
ROC on track for Team Gold medal after Day
2, USA likely to hold on for Silver
ROC took the lead in the Team event on the second day
of the Team event, following a disastrous performance by Kren Chen and a
stellar performance by Kamila Valieva. The lead was cemented in the
Men's Free Skate after a mediocre performance by Vincent Zhou. The
U.S. holds second place, three points back, followed by Japan a further
three points back.
The ROC and USA teams appear to have different
mindsets here in Beijing. ROC has put out their best skaters in each
segment thus far. They are competing for the Gold like it matters to
them. The USA is not. The choice of Chen and Zhou today look
more like it was based on politics and prioritization of the individual
events. Little insight into the team thinking, however, can be gained
from the team here as U.S. entries are chosen by the skating bureaucrats
back home who selected the Olympic Team in Nashville in January, and not the
team captains, Madison Chock and Evan Bates. The team captains are no
more than the face of the team and its head cheerleaders.
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