Canadians Eric Radford and Vanessa James compete in the pairs team free skate program during the figure skating competition at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, on Feb. 7.Natacha Pisarenko/The Associated Press
The Russian Olympic Committee took home the first skating gold of the Beijing Winter Olympics, after a close fought final day of performances in the team event Monday.
The U.S. came second, while Japan took home the bronze.
Canada’s Eric Radford and Vanessa James came fourth in the pairs skate, and Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier took third in the ice dance, while 18-year-old Madeline Schizas placed third after smashing her season’s best in the women’s free skate with a flawless performance, putting Canada in fourth place overall.
China came fifth, and there were loud cheers for the home team throughout the event at the Capital Indoor Stadium, in central Beijing. China performed strongly in several events – especially the pairs – but the team score was dragged down by a poor routine from Zhu Yi in the women’s free skate.
Californian Zhu, who also fell in qualifying, has faced criticism online, with some Chinese people questioning why an American skater was chosen over a native-born one. This was not displayed in the stadium, however, with the crowd loudly applauding a visibly upset Zhu as she left the ice.
The figure skating team medal was Canada’s first gold at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, so expectations were high for this year, though the team is almost completely different, with many of the Pyeongchang veterans having retired in the interim.
One of the medallists still skating is Radford, who was first on the ice Monday, alongside new partner James. Skating to Falling by Harry Styles, they scored 130.07, about a point short of their season’s best.
“In this case, we knew we weren’t fighting for a medal,” James said after the skate. “So it was really about making our team proud, our parents.”
Both acknowledged there is an extra dimension to the team event, where the ultimate result isn’t based on how one skater or pair performs on the ice. This can lead to huge pressure on those who go later in the lineup: Canada came close to not qualifying for Monday’s final, but for a stellar performance by Olympic rookie Schizas in the women’s short program on Sunday.
“She had a lot of pressure on her to kind of keep our team in the running,” Radford said. “She went out and she nailed it.”
James said Schizas “was so nervous because she knew it was make or break.”
“We told her to focus on herself, hone in on how she wants to perform and the rest is just, it doesn’t even matter, but she killed it and we’re so proud of her,” she added.
The value of having the whole team in the stadium was on display Monday, too, especially without international spectators allowed because of COVID-19. The dozen or so Canadian athletes and coaching staff stomped the floor, clapped and shouted, “Come on Canada,” ahead of their teammates’ skates.
“It’s an honour to be able to compete as Canada, something we don’t get to do very often,” said Gilles, adding that being able to “lift each other up” and celebrate each other during the event is a “very special and unique experience.”
“I love having the team there,” Schizas said. “For some people, it makes them more nervous but not for me. I love hearing my teammates. I love knowing that I’m going to go into the team box afterwards and no matter how it goes, having the support of my team, it made it such an exciting experience.”
Schizas, Gilles and Poirier will skate again toward the end of the week, but other teammates are due on the ice even sooner.
One of those is Keegan Messing, who begins his Olympic campaign here on Tuesday. The Canadian men’s champion has had a nightmare route to the Olympics: when the rest of the team left Vancouver last week he had to remain behind, after testing positive in a predeparture COVID-19 check.
Messing landed early Monday morning after stops in Montreal and Milan, doing his best to remain in competition form during the whole ordeal.
“It was a struggle to find a flight. We found one way to get here on that date, so thank God we’re able to get it. Wow,” Canada’s high-performance director Mike Slipchuk told the Olympic news service, adding Messing is “very resilient. He just wants to get here.”
(Roman Sadovsky filled in for Messing in the team event and placed fifth in his free skate Sunday.)
Asked about whether the choice of music for Monday – The Long and Winding Road – had a special resonance given Messing’s ordeal, Poirier said that, “It’s true for every athlete, the road to the Olympics, and to these moments, is much longer than I think people can ever really see. And much more difficult than people can ever really see.”
Just being on the ice can matter, with or without medals. James was the only Black skater performing Monday, which she was very conscious of coming into the competition.
“Representation is everything,” she said. “If I wasn’t here today, there would be no Black skaters at all, and kids at home would be wondering if this sport was for them.”
She pointed to her BIPOC and LGBTQ teammates, saying the diversity on Team Canada was “incredible, and it’s needed and it needs to continue.”
“We have to keep pushing it and reaching out to the grassroots to give them the resources and let them feel they’re welcome, they’re included and they belong,” James said.
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