Madeline Schizas, of Canada, competes in the women's short program team figure skating competition at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Feb. 6, 2022, in Beijing.Natacha Pisarenko/The Associated Press
Olympic rookie Madeline Schizas has put Canada into the final round of figure skating’s team event at the Beijing Games.
Starting the day in sixth place, and needing to finish top five to advance, the 18-year-old from Oakville, Ont., skated a virtually flawless program to Dulcea Si Tandra Mea Fiara to finish third with 69.60 points.
Canada is in fourth place with 24 points. Russia leads with 36, the United States is second (34) and Japan, third (29).
Russia’s Kamila Valieva landed the fourth triple Axel by a woman in Olympic history to score 90.18 points in the women’s short program, while Japan’s Wakaba Higuchi was second with 74.73.
The pressure was on Schizas on Sunday morning, after the men’s singles, ice dance and pairs events two days earlier.
The Canadians were already in an unenviable position when Canadian champion Keegan Messing missed the team’s charter to Beijing because of a positive COVID-19 test.
Tasked with replacing Messing on short notice, Roman Sadovsky had a shaky short program to finish eighth out of nine skaters.
Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, the reigning world bronze medalists, were fourth in ice dance and Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro were fifth in pairs to move the Canadians up to sixth overall on Friday.
Since substitutions are permitted, Skate Canada has said that Vanessa James and Eric Radford will skate the pairs free program.
Sadovsky was scheduled to skate the men’s free program later Sunday, while the pairs and ice dance are Monday.
Canada took silver in the team event when it made its debut at the 2014 Sochi Games, then won gold in 2018 with a squad anchored by ice dance stars Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir and also featuring world champions Patrick Chan and Kaetlyn Osmond.
Chan and Osmond retired from competitive skating shortly after the 2018 Pyeongchang Games ended, and Virtue and Moir followed suit in September 2019, putting Canada’s program in rebuilding mode for the quadrennial leading up the Beijing.