Gangneung: Ice dance stars Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir inspired Canada to the figure skating team title to secure the Winter Games heavyweights’ first gold at Pyeongchang 2018 Monday.
The Russians, with their teenage ice starlets Evgenia Medvedeva and Alina Zagitova, took their first silver of the Games. The USA team was third.
The Canadian, featuring dual 2014 silver medallist Patrick Chan, fulfilled their promise as favourites to beat Olympic Athletes from Russia, after coming second to the 2014 Games host nation in Sochi.
They took command, despite Chan tumbling in his men’s short programme. Competing in their third Olympics, Virtue and Moir earned a maximum 10 points for their short programme, and matched that in the concluding free with an exhilarating four-and-a-half minute performance to the music of Moulin Rouge.
Canada finished on 73 points, with OAR on 66 and the USA a further four points behind. Three-time ex-World Champion Chan said, “Determination was the added ingredient that had made the difference between Sochi silver and Korean gold.”
Italy came in fourth with Japan last of the five that went through to the final five segments of the competition which was held over three days. While Japan had to make do without defending men’s Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu, Canada went into battle with all their stars present. And they didn’t let them down at the Gangneung Ice Arena.
For Russia, competing in South Korea as OAR after Russia’s state-sponsored doping ban, it was always going to be a struggle to recover from Mikhail Kolyada’s flop in the men’s short programme. But they gave it a great shot, with their teenaged starlets Medvedeva and Zagitova dominant in both ladies’ sections.
177 norovirus cases confirmed
Seoul: Organisers of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics said Monday a total of 177 cases of norovirus infection have been confirmed since the outbreak in the Olympic host town last week. The organising committee added that 19 new cases were confirmed Sunday. No athletes have been affected by the virus, which is known to cause stomach pain and diarrhea. The newly confirmed patients include three members of civil security staff.
High winds disrupt Games
Pyeongchang: High winds caused havoc at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics Monday as the women’s slopestyle snowboarding final descended into chaos and alpine skiing suffered its second postponement in as many days. Almost all competitors crashed in the women’s slopestyle final at a windswept Phoenix Park, where strong gusts forced the cancellation of Sunday’s qualifiers and delayed Monday’s final by more than an hour. It came after ski chiefs called off the women’s giant slalom and rescheduled it to Thursday. America’s medal prospect Mikaela Shiffrin will have to wait now.
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