You can’t make this stuff up. No Hollywood writer could have conjured up such a load of emotion and tears and effort and heart as the Olympic pair final. It was epic.
Bruno Massot looked so apologetic after he had doubled a triple Salchow in the short program the previous night. He felt as if he had failed his partner, Aliona Savchenko, she who is 34, and who had already been to the Olympic well four previous times, with two bronze medals to show for her efforts. And those two bronze medals never lit her up. She stood stone-faced on the lowest podium at the Vancouver Olympics with her partner Robin Szolkowy. And then again in Sochi in 2014. All that work for bronze again.
When Szolkowy quit skating to become a coach for the Russian group of Nina Mozer, Savchenko wasn’t about to stop competing. Everybody thought she was crazy. They thought her equally silly when she found Bruno Massot, a gentle giant of a French skater that his federation reluctantly released to Germany after months of negotiations. It wasn’t at all certain this would happen. It is said they had to fork over 30,000 euros to make this transition happen, with the original asking price much higher.
Savchenko came to Pyeongchang with five world titles with her previous partner, eight world medals and those two Olympic bronze medals. No doubt Massot was under pressure. “I don’t want her to come back with another bronze medal,” Massot said. “She deserves gold.”
(Pressure? Massot didn’t get his German citizenship until just before Skate America in November. He breathed a sigh of relief, then had to focus on another big task.)
He thought he had ruined it with their fourth place after the short program, about 5 ½ points away from the lead. Massot found it tough to navigate this emotionally. Savchenko told him it wasn’t over.
They were sublime. They delivered. They didn’t put a foot wrong. Their triple twist soared to the rafters. Their throws were no less Olympic. They racked up nine marks of 10.00 for components. They maximized their grades of execution – almost all +2s and +3s. When they finished, they had set a world record of 159.31 points for a pair freeskate, and squeezed out a .43 lead over the exquisite Chinese world champions Wenjing Sui and Cong Han.
Around the world, astonished eyes were watching this miracle. “Aliona being an Olympic champion makes me want to flip a table and throw a chair across the room,” tweeted Adam Rippon. “LOVE HER. SHE’S GOT GRIT AND SHE IS A BEAST. My heart is so full.”
From home in Canada, Canadian skating icon, Ron Shaver, said it was “one of the most electrifying, inspiring and emotional things I have witnessed in history. She is a beast and he is a rock. Well done and it took five Olympics to accomplish. A lesson in belief, resilience and determination.”
It was also the toughest Olympic pair final in history. Going in, at least six couples could have won.
The Germans had worked on choreography with 1984 Olympic champion Christopher Dean, whose twitter account declared: “Love that the German pair worked with Chris and won the gold wearing purple on Bolero day! Congratulations, partner!”
It was the first Olympic title for a German pair in 66 years since Ria (Baran) and Paul Falk, a married couple won in 1952. The Falks, despite not having a coach, were never defeated during their amateur career. Still, they were the first to do double jumps and they invented the lasso lift. Paul Falk sadly didn’t live to see his successors win in such spectacular fashion. He died last May at age 95.
It was the most epic and talent-laden Olympic pairs event in history. And the Germans had won it, although because they had to skate first in their group, they had to sweat it out as three more heavyweights took to the ice. Massot reached for the tissues when the result became clear, (“I kept my emotions for the right moment,” he said later) as Russians Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov faltered in the free, despite a big quad twist, and dropped to fourth after leading the short program. And the world breathed a sigh of relief that a Candyman routine did not become the Olympic signpost. It was a program that just did not seem to fit the moment, or them. And then Tarasova doubled a Salchow and sprawled out of a throw triple Salchow early in the routine.
The Chinese bobbled, too, with Han singling a double toe loop in the midst of a three-jump combination and Sui stumbling out of a triple Salchow. Like the Russians, the Chinese let loose with a quad twist. Still, their “Turandot” routine was most luscious, pressing emotion to the bone. Their performance lifted anyone who watched. After the short program they had about a 5 ½-point lead over the Germans and Canadians Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford. That helped them to a silver medal. Tears. Lots of tears, of course. Disappointment that they lost by less than half a point – the most cruel kind of loss? Or pride at the way they had skated?
The Chinese were lucky to be at the Pyeongchang Olympics. They finished second at the Grand Prix Final to the Germans after a rousing free skate, then skipped Four Continents and the Olympic team event to focus on the individual contest. But a few weeks ago, Sui suffered a horrible gash to her leg during a practice collision. The accident left the leg stiff and painful, something she described as a seven to eight out of 10 on a scale of agony. In a previous blog, we detailed her issues with her feet, something that could have halted their career several years ago. They had never competed at an Olympics. They missed qualifying for Sochi.
And then there was Duhamel and Radford, who had never won an Olympic medal, having finished seventh in Sochi. All week long, they had rumbled at the Gangneung arena, skating both programs for the team event – entirely crucial to Canada’s gold team medal – and then two more, all within a few days. Duhamel was a cheerleader for the rest of the world, springing out of her seat when Mirai Nagasu landed a triple Axel in the team event, a leader of the Canadian team, but a citizen and supporter of excellence and grit.
Duhamel and Radford were third in the short program, even after she dropped her phone in a non-flushing toilet, got caught in the high winds that descended on Pyeongchang and that fractured her costume hanger, and then in the confusion almost boarded the wrong bus to the skating venue. Massot saved her. At least with the last catastrophe.
But the long program was the clincher. “I’ll skate my heart out tomorrow for a chance to win an Olympic medal,” Duhamel tweeted. “This is for all the dreamers. Anything is possible. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
In the free, skating to Adele’s “Hometown Glory,” they laid it out so deftly, they actually finished second in the long program to the Germans. They landed a throw quad Salchow, a first in Olympic history. They drifted into it slowly and carefully, and for a few fleeting moments, it appeared as if it could not possibly happen. But Duhamel willed the landing and the Chinese judge gave them a +2 for it. The only other team to attempt a throw quad were the dynamic French Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres, but James staggered out of it (deemed rotated) and they finished fifth altogether.
Obviously, the technical prowess of Duhamel and Radford helped them in this contest as they dispatched a triple twist, a throw triple Lutz, (almost an entire rack of +2s for this) and high GOE for most of their other elements. She did put her hands down on a triple Lutz but rotated it. Their technical score of 79.86 was second highest of this august group, although their component marks were about fourth highest, a breath behind those of the animated Italians Valentina Marchei and Ondrej Hotarek, who finished sixth, at the top of their game all week.
No matter the marks, Duhamel sunk to her knees at program’s end and sobbed happy tears. Radford shook his head in disbelief. It was real. And over, their final competitive event. (No Milan worlds for them. No more throw quads, ever.)
They had to wait until Tarasova and Morozov skated. Had the Russians skated a blinder, Duhamel and Radford could have dropped to fourth. But they took bronze, their third Olympic medal. (They also won a team silver in Sochi.)
“It feels like gold,” Duhamel said. She hopped up and down on the third-level podium.
“I couldn’t have dreamed it that much better,” she told reporters afterward. “I mean, I could have dreamed it without my hands down on my triple Lutz. But we came to the Olympics and we just delivered four amazing performances. Four out of four.”
“We saved the best for the last,” Radford said.
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