Russians in command after short program
Alina Zagitova or Evgenia Medvedeva of Russia will almost certainly take gold in one of the Winter Games marquee events after they went 1-2 in the women's short program Wednesday with the highest scores ever. The 15-year-old Zagitova and the 18-year-old Medvedva train with the same coach, hang out together and set world records just minutes apart.
With a dominating lead over the field, their friendly competition is the main drama left when the women compete in the free skate Friday. And all of Russia is waiting for the first gold medal of the Pyeongchang Olympics.
Medvedeva had not lost a competition in two years until she was beaten by Zagitova at the European Championships in Moscow. That set the stage for an Olympic showdown.
The youngsters responded with world records: Medvedeva, who held the mark for a few minutes with a score of 81.61 until Zagitova posted an 82.92.
It was not a strong showing for the Americans, each of whom had a major mistake.
Nine days after becoming the first U.S. woman and third overall to land a triple axel in the Olympics, Mirai Nagasu came down on two feet on the jump, then fell to the ice. While the rest of her program was clean, Nagasu's chances for an individual medal to go with her team bronze were damaged. Nagasu, 24 and the fourth-place finisher at the Vancouver Games, earned 66.93 points, a season's best, but was ninth.
U.S. champion Bradie Tennell went first among the 30 skaters. A fall on the back end of a combination jump — Tennell had been virtually perfect with her jumps in her breakthrough season — was costly. She ended up 11th, one spot behind Karen Chen, the 2017 American champ. was the big favorite in slalom, his specialty, but he skied out early in the opening run.
Hirscher looked uneasy on a course where the gates were set by an Austrian team coach. He already lost speed at one combination of gates and trailed by more than a half-second at the midway time split before going off the course.
"I had already really a bad feeling about the whole situation," Hirscher said, acknowledging he had some "really bad training days here."
Hirscher already won the giant slalom and Alpine combined titles, and a slalom duel with Henrik Kristoffersen of Norway was one of the most anticipated events on the Olympic Alpine program. Tapani and Linda Valimaki scored for Finland. The teams both had 22 shots, but the Russians never led after falling behind 2-0 at the start of the second period.