Figure Skating at the 2014 Winter Olympics

For the first time since 1976, a new event was added to the figure skating Olympic Program, a mixed team competition, or team trophy. The event actually started the day before the Opening Ceremony. It consisted of each team having skaters compete in men’s singles, women’s singles, pairs, and ice dancing, in both a short and long program. The same skaters did not have to compete in the short and long program, so a team could theoretically have 12 skaters competing. The event ended in a fairly easy Russian win, which was popular with the home fans.

Figure skating was held at the Iceberg Skating Palace, an arena in Adler specifically constructed for the Sochi Olympics. The Iceberg was in the Coastal Cluster along the shores of the Black Sea, which seemed an incongruous place for a figure skating competition. In general, the events came off well. The Russian fans were saddened and upset when their male star, Yevgeny Plyushchenko, withdrew from the singles after the team event and did not compete. But they won the gold medal in the women’s singles, although it was an upset when Adelina Sotnikova won the gold and not young phenom Yuliya Lipnitskaya, who finished out of the medals after a desultory short program. The Russians won a third gold medal in the pairs competition, with Tetiana Volosozhar and Maksim Trankov taking that title.

The dance competition was won by the Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White over their Canadian rivals, and defending gold medalists, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir. There was some mild controversy that this close competition had been pre-determined by the judges but the discussion passed quickly. Another mild controversy arose after the women’s singles when Korean defending gold medalist Yu-Na Kim lost out to Russian Adelina Sotnikova, who was only the Russian’s second top female skater. That controversy initially died out with minimal concern, but one month after Sochi ended, the Korean Skating Federation protested the result to the International Skating Union, claiming bias by the judges, several of whom were from former Soviet Republics.