Singles, Women

The ladies singles at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games was held on 21 February (short program) and 23 February (free skate) at the Gangneung Ice Arena with 30 women from 20 nations.

Prior to the start of the 2018 Olympic Winter Games, the competition for gold was thought to be a coronation for Russian Yevgeniya Medvedeva as she would skate unchallenged to the top of the podium based on her previous season – until toward the end of 2017, when she broke her foot. That opened the door for fellow Russian teenager, 2017 World Junior champion Alina Zagitova. The Canadians also had a few contenders to offer a legitimate challenge to the Russians having had two women on the podium at the 2017 World Championships – silver medalist Kaetlyn Osmond, who was also the 2014 Olympic team silver medalist, and 2014 Olympian Gabrielle Daleman, reigning World bronze medalist. Both were members of the gold medal winning Canadian team in the first week of the Games.

The glamour event of the Winter Olympics was once dominated by American women, who had accounted for 19 of a possible 45 Olympic medals in the ladies singles from 1952 through 2006. The Americans won no medals at the Olympics of 2010 and 2014, and had only made the podium once in the last 11 World Championships, which was Ashley Wagner’s home-soil silver in 2016. The American’s were missing her in PyeongChang after she finished fourth at the US Olympic Trials.

The short program was dominated by the rising Russian teenage stars. Zagitova had edged her rival and training partner, two-time World champion Medvedva, to top the ranking with a world record 82.92 points to Medvedva’s 81.61 points. Both left all three of their jumping passes for the second half of their program, which earned them bonus points. Osmond finished in third with 78.87 points, her season’s best score.

In the free skate, Zagitova skated to “Don Quixote”, with all 11 of her jumps back-loaded in the second half of her program on “tired legs” thus producing a 10% bonus per jump. She lead the scoring with 156.65 points, just two points shy of setting a second world record at the Games. Her combined score of 239.57 points was enough to capture the gold medal, just 1.36 points ahead of reigning World champion Medvedeva, who skated to the music of Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” for the silver (238.26 points).

At 15 years and 281 days of age, not only did Zagitova became one of the youngest figure skating Olympic champions ever (Tara Lipinski was 15 years 8 months in 1998), she was also the first athlete who was born in the 21st century to win a gold medal.

Osmond, who finished 13th at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, who skated to music from “Black Swan,” scored 152.15 points in her long program for a combined score of 231.02 points to capture the bronze medal. Canada hadn’t won an Olympic medal in women’s singles since Joannie Rochette claimed bronze at the 2010 Vancouver Games.

At the medal ceremony, the two Russians watched the Olympic flag being raised in their honour (instead of the Russian flag), and heard the Olympic hymn played (instead of the Russian anthem).