The first day of figure skating competition at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games is in the books, and there was a surprise leader after the first three segments of competition. Team United States takes a two-point lead over Team Russian Olympic Committee on the heels of personal best skates from all three American entries, and though ROC is still the favorites for gold, the US have opened the door for an upset.
As good as it gets
It’s difficult to imagine anything much better for Team USA than what Nathan Chen, then Madison Hubbell/Zachary Donohue, then Alexa Knierim/Brandon Frazier put out there on the first day of competition. Three clean programs from the three entries for the US, and they really could not have hoped for anything better than that. Before today, the US has never won a Team Event segment other than in dance (Meryl Davis/Charlie White in both the short and the free in Sochi), nor have they ever won two segments in one phase of the competition.
Chen, as the lead-off leg for the team, found the short program that he couldn’t figure out four years ago. As much as he has tried to play down the disappointment from PyeongChang, it has been on his mind - after all, his original plan for the season was to be able to do justice to his Nemesis short program from 2018 (he later changed it to the La Boheme program he used today. But for many who have watched and known Chen for the past few years, the unlock was likely to come in the very first jump - the quad flip - and how it set the tone. Just yesterday, he struggled with the flip in practice and looked frustrated trying to figure out a jump that has been so comfortable for him in the past few years. But he settled himself this morning in his final practice and never looked back.
Hubbell/Donohue’s win over Victoria Sinitsina/Nikita Katsalapov was not a scenario most expected, but Hubbell/Donohue skated their cleanest RD of the season and Katsalapov made two visible errors, they puleld off the upset. Some would even argue that Sinitsina/Katsalapov should have scored more in the 80-82 range with those mistakes. If the US somehow pulls off the upset for team gold, they will look back at this reversal of expectations as an early turning point.
Similarly, Knierim/Frazier defied expectations with a stunner of a short program that was by far the best skate of their lives. It was a phenomenal turnaround for a team that was taken out of the US Championships because of COVID, with Frazier so ill that it took him at least a week and a half after he got back home to feel like he could even practice fully again.
— @tegomass 💐 do not retweet 😭☠️ (@gabbmedia_2022) February 4, 2022
Sui/Han wins the first head-to-head
In non-Team-Event-but-still-Team-Event storylines, there was perhaps none that people were looking at more than the matchup between Wenjing Sui/Cong Han and Anastasia Mishina/Aleksandr Galliamov, two of the pairs expected to battle for gold in a couple of weeks in the individual event.
Why was this head-to-head important? They haven’t faced off yet this season and it was an early indicator of how they might compare if they both put down clean skates. Both skated cleanly and both maxed out their levels - Mishina/Galliamov took the grades of execution, but perhaps more importantly, Sui/Han had the edge on program components. And it may be the PCS that tell the tale in the individual event.
#Beijing2022 Team Event after Day 1
— Jackie Wong (@rockerskating) February 4, 2022
1 Team USA 🇺🇸 28
2 Team ROC 🇷🇺 26
3 Team CHN 🇨🇳 21
4 Team JPN 🇯🇵 20
5 Team ITA 🇮🇹 18
6 Team CAN 🇨🇦 16
7 Team GEO 🇬🇪 15
8 Team CZE 🇨🇿 12
9 Team UKR 🇺🇦 4
10 Team GER 🇩🇪 3https://t.co/T88ZR0ChtD
How will the rest of the short programs shakeout?
The women’s entries are still not due yet, but from all indications - and we even heard it in the press conference from Katsalapov - Kamila Valieva will be the lead-off for Team ROC. With an almost certain win there, ROC will head into the free skate with some momentum. But where the US entry - either Mariah Bell or Karen Chen - finishes will also determine just how large that door opening is for the team gold upset. Team Japan will rely on the strength of either Wakaba Higuchi or Kaori Sakamoto to get themselves more in the mix - they are currently in fourth but will most certainly get back into the top three.
But also, the competition slims down to five teams after the short programs are done, so outside of those projected top three, two more teams qualify for the free and that’s where the intrigue is. China (21), Italy (18), Canada (16), and Georgia (15) are separated by six points, and lots can happen in the women’s short. The breakdown looks a little bit like this:
Canada and Georgia trail but have the edge. Madeline Schizas and Anastasiia Gubanova both have the potential to be in the top five in the women’s short, with a short program ceiling of somewhere around 68-72. The two are fairly evenly matched - and Canada and Georgia are currently separated by one point. China and Italy go into the women’s short programs knowing that they have hit their weak spot. Yi Zhu and Lara Naki Gutmann have short program ceilings in the low 60s, so they will need to be clean.
If Zhu can finish in the top eight, then Team China’s chances for the free skate go way up. Gutmann will need a huge score and probably a top six to give Italy a chance, and that seems unlikely given her season so far.
So omg tiebreakers?
Given the scenarios, there is a potential that a tiebreaker will decide which team goes into the free skate, so let’s take a look at what that means. The tiebreaker rules somewhat favor teams with very strong strong links over teams with consistent strength in all disciplines. Here are the tiebreakers in order of operation:
Highest total team points from the two best places; if still tied, then:
Highest total segment scores of the current segment of the two best places according to team points; if still tied, then:
Highest total team points from the three best places; if still tied, then:
Highest total segment scores of the current segment of the three best places according to team points
If still tied, then a tie will actually happen and all tied teams qualify for the final