The fifth time was the charm for Aljona Savchenko, a Ukrainian who has skated in five Olympic Games for two different countries and with three different partners. In PyeongChang, she finally realized her Olympic dream of winning gold.
Together with partner Bruno Massot, Savchenko, who skates for Germany, was in fourth place after the short program. But she and Massot were the only couple among the top three to skate a clean free program, which vaulted them to the top of the podium. Their scores were the highest ever recorded for the pairs long program and it was enough for gold. After earning two bronze medals at previous Olympics with another partner, Savchenko said of her first, long-awaited gold: “I never give up. I keep fighting.”
“We were on the ice for the gold medal and we didn t give up,” says Massot. “I said I don t [Savchenko] to come back with another bronze medal. She deserved this gold medal.”
The Chinese pair of Wenjing Sui and Cong Han were flawless in the short program, but Han popped jumps in the combination and Sui stumbled on the side by side jumps in the long program and earned silver. The Canadians Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford felt redeemed by their bronze, since they finished in seventh place four years ago in Sochi. “You have probably never seen happier bronze medalists,” says Radford, whose brother and parents were in the arena along with 14 other relatives sporting Olympic Fan from Canada shirts.
Duhamel and Radford also have the distinction of making history — they are the first pair to complete a quadruple throw jump at the Olympics. When told of their breakthrough, they were surprised. “It s a fact we did not know,” said Duhamel.
Even beyond the podium, there s likely never been more interest in skaters ranked 13th, but Ryom Tae Ok and Kim Ju Sik of North Korea managed to draw in both the crowd and the judges in their free program.
