Olympics 2018: German Pair Wins Skating Gold
The fifth time was the charm for Aljona Savchenko, a Ukrainian who has skated in five Olympic Games for two different countries and with three different partners.In PyeongChang, she finally realized her Olympic dream of winning gold.Together with partner Bruno Massot, Savchenko, who skates for Germany, was in fourth place after the short program.But she and Massot were the only couple among the top three to skate a clean free program, which vaulted them to the top of the podium.Their scores were the highest ever recorded for the pairs long program and it was enough for gold.After earning two bronze medals at previous Olympics with another partner, Savchenko said of her first, long-awaited gold: “I never give up.I keep fighting.” “We were on the ice for the gold medal and we didn’t give up,” says Massot.“I said I don’t [Savchenko] to come back with another bronze medal.She deserved this gold medal.” Read more: How to Sound Like an Expert While You Watch Olympic Figure Skating The Chinese pair of Wenjing Sui and Cong Han were flawless in the short program, but Han popped jumps in the combination and Sui stumbled on the side by side jumps in the long program and earned silver.The Canadians Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford felt redeemed by their bronze, since they finished in seventh place four years ago in Sochi.“You have probably never seen happier bronze medalists,” says Radford, whose brother and parents were in the arena along with 14 other relatives sporting Olympic Fan from Canada shirts.Duhamel and Radford also have the distinction of making history — they are the first pair to complete a quadruple throw jump at the Olympics.When told of their breakthrough, they were surprised.“It’s a fact we did not know,” said Duhamel.Even beyond the podium, there’s likely never been more interest in skaters ranked 13th, but Ryom Tae Ok and Kim Ju Sik of North Korea managed to draw in both the crowd and the judges in their free program.Read more: U.S.Picks Up Bronze in the Olympic Team Figure Skating as Canada Takes Home the Gold As their coach paced the boards by the rink and pumped her fists in the air, the North Korean pair dazzled again, skating a clean program that earned them another season’s best score.But even that didn’t satisfy them.Kim said the he and Ryom had more work to do, and that they planned to improve their score step by step in coming competitions.Bruno Marcotte, the Canadian coach who worked with them last summer, said he saw great improvement but that they still needed to work on things such as speed and technique; he wasn’t sure if he would continue to work with the North Korean pair before the next Olympic Games.