Team event up 1st as Olympic figure skating begins

BEIJING – The staff competitors in Olympic determine skating has all the time been a three-team scramble for the rostrum.

There’s the Russians, who received gold on the occasion’s 2014 debut in Sochi and silver in Pyeongchang. There’s the Canadians, who took silver earlier than discovering gold 4 years later. And there’s the People, who’ve taken bronze every time.

There could possibly be a brand new participant within the combine when competitors begins Friday in Beijing, although. After back-to-back fifth-place finishes, the Japanese carry their strongest bunch but to the Olympics, and will knock off the rostrum a Canadian staff that not has retired Patrick Chan or ice dancers Tessa Advantage and Scott Moir to pile up the factors.

As for the People? Maybe they’ll lastly transfer up a step or two on the rostrum.

“It’s necessary any time you compete,” mentioned Nathan Chen, who carried out his brief program for the U.S. staff in Pyeongchang and completed a lackluster fourth in it. “I’m going to attempt to do the very best I can. I do know the remainder of us will, too.”

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Chen is among the many favorites to win particular person gold in Beijing, and the staff occasion ought to give him a aggressive warmup. He doesn’t know whether or not he’ll skate his brief program, free skate or each for the staff — that call might be made by Workforce USA shortly earlier than competitors — however he’s a lock to compete at the very least as soon as.

The order of occasions modified from Pyeongchang, when pairs adopted the staff occasion, and meaning Chen and the remainder of the lads might be up subsequent week. Pairs acquired the misfortune of heading to the again of the Olympic program, which means they received’t be on the ice once more till Feb. 18 — for some, a full two weeks after their first style of competitors.

“We actually acquired the very best finish of the draw,” Chen mentioned after his follow Thursday morning at Capital Indoor Stadium, the sector within the coronary heart of Beijing identified for being the house of “ping-pong diplomacy” within the Nineteen Seventies. “The pairs can have the toughest time transferring from the entrance finish to the again finish.”

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How the staff occasion shakes out might rely largely upon which skaters every nation selects.

The Russians have a trio of girls’s medal favorites — Kamila Valieva, Alexandra Trusova and Anna Schherbakova — together with pairs favorites Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov. In addition they have robust dance groups, although their trio of males took a success when Mikhail Kolyada needed to withdraw following a constructive COVID-19 check.

The Japanese might ship out two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu after he skipped the staff occasion in Pyeongchang; Shoma Uno nonetheless received the brief program for them. In addition they have medal contender Kaori Sakamoto, leaving the pairs staff of Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara and ice dancers Misato Komatsubara and Tim Koleto to maintain tempo with their rivals.

Canada may not have the identical firepower it had 4 years in the past, however pairs skater Eric Radford is again with new associate Vanessa James, and the ice dance staff of Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier have medal expectations of their very own.

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Then there’s the American staff.

Together with Chen, they’ve one other males’s medal contender in high-flying however inconsistent Vincent Zhou, and veteran Jason Brown, whose fourth-place free skate in the course of the staff occasion in Sochi helped the U.S. win bronze.

Ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates, Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue, and Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker all have podium potential. Alysa Liu, Karen Chen and Mariah Bell are the U.S. choices within the girls’s brief program and free skate. And there are two pairs choices in Beijing in Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier and Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc after the People certified just one for the Pyeongchang Video games.

“I’d love the chance to compete in that occasion,” mentioned Bell, the 25-year-old U.S. champion who might be making her long-awaited Olympic debut. “I do know they’ll decide who they really feel is finest, however I’d love the chance to compete.”

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So would Karen Chen. She sat out the staff occasion in Pyeongchang together with Zhou and the dance groups of Chock and Bates and Hubbell and Donohue. And since they didn’t compete in it, additionally they didn’t take residence a medal.

“I’d like to be part of the staff occasion and particularly since I didn’t get to expertise it final time,” Karen Chen mentioned, “so if I’m capable of, it’s going to be a lot enjoyable.”

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Extra AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/winter-olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports