The Olympic girls’s determine skating competitors kicked off on Tuesday, Feb. 17 with the quick program.
Japan’s Ami Nakai completed in first place, whereas her veteran teammate Kaori Sakamoto completed proper behind her in second. Staff USA’s Alysa Liu grabbed third, whereas her teammates Isabeau Levito and Amber Glenn landed in eighth and thirteenth place, respectively.
Listed below are 5 key takeaways from a wildly aggressive quick program:
An excellent, clear skate
There isn’t any getting round it: The boys’s Olympic occasion was nothing in need of a splat-fest. Everybody from presumed gold medalist Ilia Malinin to notoriously constant Yuma Kagiyama stumbled via their applications. When Kazakh skater Mikhail Shaidorov took residence the gold, he did it as a result of he was the one prime skater to remain upright for 2 straight applications.
Those that watched the lads’s occasion and questioned if the Milan ice was cursed needn’t surprise any longer. The ladies’s quick program was fantastically executed from begin to end, and each single one of many prime contenders landed their jumps cleanly.
Axels made all of the distinction
Whereas the lads are busy preventing their manner via a quad arms race, the ladies are centered on an previous favourite: the triple axel. It is a devilishly troublesome soar that options an additional half-rotation over each different soar in a skater’s arsenal, and treasured few girls on this Olympic subject can do it with ease.
Those who can — Japan’s 17-year-old phenom Ami Nakai and Staff USA’s 26-year-old veteran Amber Glenn — leveraged it Tuesday with nice impact. Nakai’s, coupled along with her near-perfect quick program to “La Strada,” catapulted her to the highest of the leaderboard; Glenn’s saved her from falling out of the standings altogether after she under-rotated the ultimate soar in her program.
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