The group of U.S. determine skaters fought a tricky rematch in opposition to Japan to win a second straight gold medal in group competitors.
The dramatic showdown between nations got here down to every nations’ closing male skater within the free skate program. As soon as the factors had been tabulated, Ilia Malinin of the U.S. had a slight edge over Shun Sato of Japan.
The day’s group competitors began off with a pairs free skate. Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea delivered the very best free skate of their pairs profession when the U.S. wanted it most, beating the Canadian duo to keep away from dropping a much-needed level to the profitable Japanese pairs group.
Amber Glenn completed behind Japanese star Kaori Sakamoto and Anastasiia Gubanova of Georgia within the girls’s free skate on Sunday evening, leaving the defending champion People tied with their largest rivals with solely the lads’s free skate nonetheless to go.
Kam and O’Shea scored 135.36 factors for his or her program, which opened with “Candy Goals” by the Eurythmics and completed with “All people Needs to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears. Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara gained the section with a career-best of their very own of 155.55 factors, pulling the Japanese to inside two factors of the People with two occasions remaining.
“We couldn’t be extra proud to have the ability to carry out below what we felt was a lot power,” stated the 34-year-old O’Shea, who was an Olympic alternate in 2018 however is making his debut on the Winter Video games. “We walked into the day, walked into the rink with constructive feelings, with an offensive perspective, and that confirmed on the market on the ice.”
Within the girls’s free skate, Amber Glenn spun out of her opening triple axel, probably the most tough triple bounce that solely she tried among the many girls, and had so as to add a late double toe loop after lacking an earlier triple as a part of a mixture. These two errors, and a few different errors alongside the best way, left the three-time reigning U.S. champion with 138.62 factors — and extra crucially, third within the section.
Sakamoto, the person bronze medalist on the Beijing Video games, made a few errors of her personal, together with one throughout her late mixture leaping go. However she screamed in delight when her rating of 148.62 factors was proven on the screens.
“It wasn’t how I wished to really feel,” Glenn stated afterward. “The adrenaline was actually up and I believe I simply crashed a bit of bit.”
On the primary evening of males’s determine skating, Workforce USA’s Ilia Malinin surprised spectators with a backflip on the ice — however didn’t end in first place.
