BEIJING – Kamila Valieva stood at the edge of the rink to get some last-second advice from her coach, Eteri Tutberidze, then took one deep breath and glided swiftly to the middle of the ice inside cavernous Capital Indoor Stadium at the 2022 Winter Olympics.
In a performance that confirmed her place as the gold medal-favourite at the Beijing Games, the 15-year-old Valieva laid down one of the highest-scoring short programmes in history.
Her score of 90.18 points on Sunday thrust the heavily favored Russian team into the lead after the second of three days of competition in the team event.
“I’m obviously happy that we’re in the lead at the moment,” she said according to AP, “and I hope that continues in the free skate as well.”
It did through the men’s free skate, where Mark Kondratiuk finished a surprising third behind Yuma Kagiyama of Japan. That left the Russians with 45 points, three ahead of the US and six ahead of Japan, heading into the free dance, pairs and women’s free skates that will decide the medals on Monday.
It was a disappointing day for the Americans, who had led after Day 1 thanks to winning performances from Nathan Chen and ice dancers Maddison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue.
Karen Chen fell on her final jump in the women’s short program, and Vincent Zhou – subbing into the event for Nathan Chen – struggled during his free skate.
That left the US trailing the Russian team and forced to keep a wary eye on Japan in third place.
“The rest of our team is extremely strong and everyone here is prepared to say that they’re part of getting the job done,” Zhou said, “so I believe in my teammates and I fully support them along the way.”
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