The Olympic ladies’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 here are 5 key takeaways from a wildly aggressive quick program:
, clear skate
There is not any getting round it: The boys’s Olympic occasion was nothing wanting a splat-fest. Everybody from presumed gold medalist Ilia Malinin to notoriously constant Yuma Kagiyama stumbled via their packages. When Kazakh skater Mikhail Shaidorov took house the gold, he did it as a result of he was the one high skater to remain upright for 2 straight packages.
Those that watched the boys’s occasion and questioned if the Milan ice was cursed needn’t marvel any longer. The ladies’s quick program was fantastically executed from begin to end, and each single one of many high contenders landed their jumps cleanly.
Axels made all of the distinction
Whereas the boys are busy combating their method via a quad arms race, the ladies are centered on an outdated favourite: the triple axel. It is a devilishly troublesome leap that options an additional half-rotation over each different leap in a skater’s arsenal, and treasured few ladies on this Olympic area 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 together with her near-perfect quick program to “La Strada,” catapulted her to the highest of the leaderboard; Glenn’s stored her from falling out of the standings altogether after she under-rotated the ultimate leap in her program.
