Chinese pair look golden from any perspective

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Chinese pair look golden from any perspective

You can look at the pairs skating final on the micro level, poring over the dozens of numbers on the score sheet, and you will find the mathematical differences that accounted for the outcome.

Or you can look at it on the macro level, seeing the forest instead of the trees, and you will find a poignant story of perseverant triumph over relentless adversity, a triumph made even more remarkable because it came in a Saturday competition with extraordinary skating.

The way Sui Wenjing and Han Cong of China won the gold medal at the 2022 Winter Olympics was, in a way, a microcosm of their lengthy partnership, a performance in which a big problem did not stop them. They had one big problem on a jump during Saturday’s free skate, but overcame it with surpassing excellence on everything else.

They had prevailed over doubters who said their body types did not fit into pairs skating. Over injuries that required two difficult foot surgeries for her and a hip surgery for him. Over the pressure of trying to win at home in a country brimming with nationalistic pride.

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In Olympic pairs short program, breathtaking excellence

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In Olympic pairs short program, breathtaking excellence

At its best, pairs figure skating is not only beautiful but thrilling, in a hold-your-breath kind of way.

It is a high-wire act of throws and twists and ever-more-complex lifts, moves that U.S. pairs skater Timothy LeDuc perfectly characterizes as right out of Cirque du Soleil.

Pairs skating was at its best in the short program at the 2018 Winter Olympics, where, as I wrote then, you could justifiably have exhausted a dictionary's supply of superlatives to describe the quality of the leading performers.

The quality of the top teams in Friday’s pairs short program at the 2022 Winter Olympics was even better.

Sui Wenjing and Han Cong of China, fire on ice, lead with a world record score. The next two finishers, Yevgenia Tarasova/Vladimir Morozov and Anastasia Mishina/Aleksandr Galliamov, both of the Russian Olympic Committee, each had season-best scores.

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Valieva falls, women's singles event ends in anguish, anger and numbness

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Valieva falls, women's singles event ends in anguish, anger and numbness

The scenes were surreal, full of the visceral pain of two Russian teenagers and the numbness of a third, flooded with the thunderous sobbing of a Japanese woman who is 21, all overcome by the swirling maelstrom that had enveloped the women’s singles event at the 2022 Winter Olympics for a week.

There was little joy in any of this when it ended, not for the four skaters who were atop the standings, not for those who watched it, hopefully not for the officials who avoided yet another surreal moment only because a 15-year-old crumbled in front of the world.

No asterisks now will be necessary for the medal results. There will be a formal ceremony Friday in which Anna Shcherbakova (ROC) will receive the gold, Aleksandra Trusova (ROC) the silver, Kaori Sakamoto of Japan the bronze.

Kamila Valieva’s collapse in the free skate made it possible for the International Olympic Committee to continue as planned with the presentation, to pretend that there is something normal about a situation filled with ethical and procedural and judicial questions, many of which likely will not be answered for months, if at all.

All we know with certainty is that Valieva skated this week under the shadow of a positive doping test and the weight of virtually universal agreement that her continued presence as an Olympic competitor was unfair to the other 29 skaters in the women’s field.

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Valieva case spotlights an old question in figure skating: Will age minimum be raised?

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Valieva case spotlights an old question in figure skating: Will age minimum be raised?

Would raising the minimum age in figure skating prevent another Kamila Valieva situation in the future?

It would not directly deal with the issue of doping that is at the center of this highly controversial case, which has utterly overshadowed the 2022 Winter Olympic figure skating competition for the week since it became public.

But it would address part of the multi-layered problem that may have contributed to Valieva, 15, having a banned drug, trimetazidine, appear in a doping control sample she gave Dec. 25.

Olympic champion Nathan Chen’s coach, Rafael Arutunian, has advocated raising the age minimum for several seasons. He thinks the Valieva case will put more pressure on the International Skating Union to do it.

“If you are skating in an adult competition, you should be an adult,” Arutunian told me this week via telephone.

NBC Olympics has confirmed a Russian TV report that the ISU governing council will put forward a proposal to raise the minimum age for Olympic-level (senior) international competition on the agenda of the ISU congress in June. The minimum would go from 15 to 17, cover only figure skating and be phased in.

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From Michelle Kwan to Nathan Chen, passing an Olympic torch of representation

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From Michelle Kwan to Nathan Chen, passing an Olympic torch of representation

Nathan Chen has talked frequently about the motivational impact of growing up in Salt Lake City, where reminders of the 2002 Winter Games were widely visible around town throughout his childhood. He began skating at 3, not long after watching snippets of NBC’s Olympic broadcasts.

What captivated Chen equally was seeing -- both at the Olympics and in the following years -- a skater who was not only a champion but also a person who looked like him ... and his four siblings ... and his Chinese immigrant parents ... and others in the Chinese-American community.

That was Michelle Kwan, one of the most decorated and most admired skaters in history, who won an Olympic bronze medal in 2002 -- and, coincidentally, the third of her nine U.S. titles in Salt Lake City three months before Chen was born in 1999.

In interviews following his Olympic triumph Thursday, the first gold medal by a singles skater of Chinese ethnicity, Chen acknowledged more than once how much Kwan had meant to his career as a figure skater.

"Growing up in Salt Lake City and having a face like Michelle Kwan is very inspirational," he said. "Having an athlete that looks like you gives you the hope you can do the same. Michelle Kwan is certainly that for me. That goes back to the power of representation."

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