PAIRS BRONZE FOR CANADA
PYEONGCHANG, Korea, Republic Of — Canada’s Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford won a bronze medal in pairs figure skating at the Pyeongchang Olympics today.
The two-time world champions, who are competing in their final season, scored 153.33 points for their program to Adele’s Hometown Glory, and 230.15 total points.
Germany’s Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot, who started the day just 0.23 points behind the Canadians, won gold with 235.90, while reigning world champions Sui Wenging and Han Cong of China took silver with 235.47.
Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov, representing Russia, were second after Wednesday’s short program but fell to fourth place today.
Duhamel and Radford were third after the short program, five-and-a-half points behind the leaders.
On Wednesday, by contrast, Canada was quiet, with athletes kept from the podium after winning a flurry of medals over the past three days.
But there was plenty of noise on social media, with Canadian short-track speedskater Kim Boutin the subject of angry, sometimes threatening messages after her controversial bronze-medal performance in the women’s 500-metre race.
Boutin set her social media accounts to private Wednesday after hundreds of angry messages were directed at her by irate South Koreans. Boutin finished fourth in the race, but was promoted to third when South Korea’s Minjeong Choi was disqualified for interfering with the Canadian. Angry fans posted animated gifs or still images from the race, claiming that Boutin had pushed Choi.
“Congratulations on a dirty medal,” one message said.
“You had been teaching Kim Boutin how to cheat, Canada!!” said another on Twitter.
Boutin, from Sherbrooke, Que., closed her social media accounts and the RCMP, IOC and Speed Skating Canada began investigations.
“The health, safety and security of all our team members is our top priority and as such we are working closely with Speed Skating Canada, our security personnel and the RCMP,” said a statement from the Canadian Olympic Committee. “We will not make further comment on this issue, so that Kim can focus on her upcoming events.”
The subject was also raised later in the day at the International Olympic Committee’s media briefing.
“Clearly what we want is for great performances to be applauded and that’s what the Olympic Games is about,” said IOC spokesperson Mark Adams. “We’re not in control, nor should we be, of social media and unfortunately these incidents do come up from time to time. It’s regrettable.
“I haven’t seen the comments but I can imagine. We’ve had it, as I say, in previous Games. All we can do is say let’s concentrate on what was a great performance and congratulations by the way to Canada for the bronze medal. I was there last night and it was pretty amazing.”
Through five days of competition, Canada sat fourth in the overall medal standings with 10 (three gold, four silver, three bronze). Germany led all countries with 12 overall and seven gold medals.
The Netherlands and Norway each had 11 medals.
Duhamel and Radford’s bronze adds one more medal to the Canadian count.
Canadian athletes weren’t figured to contend in Wednesday’s medal events with the exception of doubles luge. Tristan Walker of Cochrane, Alta., and Justin Snith of Calgary finished fourth in the event four years ago.
The Canadians were fourth again through Wednesday’s first run, but slipped to fifth after a slower second run dashed their medal hopes.
Walker and Snith finished in a combined time of one minute 32.369 seconds.
Germany’s Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt defended their Olympic gold from 2014 with a time of 1:31.697. Austria’s Peter Penz and Georg Fischler took silver in 1:31.785, while Germans Toni Eggert and Sascha Benecken finished with bronze in 1:31.987.
The men’s curling tournament began Wednesday with Calgary’s Kevin Koe leading Canada to a pair of close wins — 5-3 win over Italy and 6-4 over Great Britain. Koe had a razor-thin one-point lead heading into the 10th end of both matches.