The U.S. completed the team figure skating event at the Beijing Winter Olympics on Monday with its best finish yet—earning a silver medal. The Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) earned gold, and Japan earned its first medal in the event with bronze.
Perhaps more importantly, the team competition could foreshadow a strong showing for Team USA in the upcoming ice dance events. Both pairs of Americans who competed scored higher than the current world champions from the ROC, who were widely expected to skate away with gold in Beijing.
While the focus of the final day of the team skating event was meant to be on how skaters’ skills complemented each other, all eyes gravitated toward one skater: The ROC’s Kamila Valieva. The 15-year-old, who is competing in her first season as a senior skater, set a couple of firsts; she became the first female skater to land a quadruple jump at the Games, as well as the first female skater to perform two different quadruple jumps at the Olympics. Valieva had three quads planned, but fell on the last one, and seemed more disappointed by that mistake than elated over making history.
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Valieva reflected afterward on the pressure of being in the spotlight for her accomplishments, and admitted: “I do feel this burden a bit, this pressure because this is my first season among adult skaters. I believe I’m coping with this pressure; sometimes it even pushes me forward, it helps me.”
And there was even more figure skating news on an already eventful day. Minutes after the competition ended, U.S. Figure Skating officials announced that Vincent Zhou, the national silver medalist, tested positive for COVID-19 the previous day. Zhou is undergoing confirmatory tests to determine if he will be eligible to…
Source : time
