SPORTS | Olympics 2018, Ladies' Figure Skating

Olympics 2018, Ladies' Figure Skating

A moment of silence as we pay respect to the last 2014 Sochi Olympics, after Yuna Kim was robbed of her much deserved gold medal.

All right, so we now come to the ladies figure skating. Up until today, all my hope and faith rested on Evgenia Medvedeva (yes, the anime fanatic Russian contortionist who can twizzle with probably both feet up the ground- nah, just kidding). But EM actually lost to her younger team mate, Alina Zagitova (and did I mention that she's only 15! When I was 15, I was pretty useless apart from getting glued in front of the TV, because that's what normal teens do- be useless. And so AZ shook the World after making a statement "yes I'm young, but age doesn't matter in skating bitches." 

So both EM and AZ will pull each others' hair for the first and second spots, no doubt. The only question is who will take the bronze, otherwise known as "almost there, but not good enough". Bradie Tennell from the USA has suddenly popped out of nowhere. During previous US Nationals, it was usually the boring blondes- Gracie Gold and Ashley Wagner who stole the show; albeit never ever giving a clean performance in any of their competitions. But this BT seems to have a special contract with gravity- she never falls. Well talk about clean skating. If she ever pulls one out during the Olympics, she'll be one thief in the night. Kaetlyn Osmond from Canada is also one to watch out for, though she's a little inconsistent. And if you are rooting for her, blimey- you will have a heart attack because it's either a yay or nein, with her performances. And finally Mirai Nagasu of USA is making waves this week after landing triple axel during the team event. To be fair, MN's triple axel was pretty smooth on the landing.

That being said and watched, it's very much dominated by the Russian delegates. The rest can't hold a candle with the superior techniques of Russian skaters, so the only question now is who among the pack will be the strongest contender for the bronze medal?

If we go by best season scores:

Name	Country	Season's Best Score	(+5,-5)
Alina Zagitova	Russia	238.24	1 & 2
Evgenia Medvedeva	Russia	232.86	1 & 2
Kaetlyn Osmond	Canada	217.55	3
Bradie Tennell	USA	204.10	3
Mirai Nagasu	USA	194.46	Unplaced

Hence, my best prediction is:

Gold - Alina Zagitova
Silver - Evgenia Medvedeva
Bronze - Kaetlyn Osmond

So we gonna see on the 23rd February the final results. 

***

Update on this article: 

Results are now in for the Ladies Figure Skating.

Rank	Country	Skater	Short Program	Free Skate	TOTAL	Remarks
1	Russia	Alina Zagitova	82.92	156.65	239.57	World Record
2	Russia	Evgenia Medvedeva	81.61	156.65	238.26	World Record - Beaten after 15minutes
3	Canada	Kaetlyn Osmond	78.87	152.15	231.02	Good job Canada!

Hence, my prediction is correct for the first three spots. I missed out on the 4th and 5th, though; as 4th went to Carolina Kostner of Italy & 5th to Satoko Miyahara of Japan. Well the thing with the 4th place onwards, is that all other competitors are quite inconsistent and you would never really know who it will be until you see them hit the ice. As for the US skaters, the best they got was 9th, 10th and 11th for Bradie Tennell, Mirai Nagasu and Karen Chen. I have a feeling that US will take more years before producing outstanding figure skaters again.