In an uncertain battle to the very end, the USA won a point more than the silver-winning Japan, and the decision came in the last discipline – the free program. Before that performance, both national teams had 59 points each, and the current world champion Ilja Malinin performed for the USA, while Shun Sato skated for Japan.
Malinin performed first, made several mistakes, but still received a high final score of 200.03 points. An excellent performance by Sata followed, but the Japanese collected 194.86 points, which was not enough. The USA thus received 10 points and Japan 9 points, which allowed the USA to take gold with 69 points, while Japan remained in silver with 68.
Italy won the bronze with 60 points.
Madison Chock and Evan Bates performed for the USA in the dance pairs competition, Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea in the sports pairs, Alysa Liu and Amber Glenn in the women’s competition, and Ilja Malinin in the men’s competition.
Japan, like four years ago, won silver. It had four of the same skaters as in Beijing: sports couple Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara, skater Kaori Sakamoto and skater Yuma Kagiyama. They were joined by the dance couple Utana Yoshida and Masaya Morita, and skater Shun Sato.
For Italy, the dance couple Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri, the sports couple Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii, skater Lara Naki Gutmann, and skaters Daniel Grassl and Matteo Rizzo won bronze for Italy.
(Vijesti.ba)
