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Chinese skaters Sui Wenjing and Han Cong, silver medalists four years ago, were crowned Olympic champions in pairs, giving the host country of the 2022 Olympics its 15th and last medal, its 9th in gold, on Saturday.
Sui and Han, already in the lead after the short program, beat with their total of 239.88 points two Russian couples, Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov, 2nd (239.25 pts), and Anastasia Mishina and Aleksandr Galliamov, 3rd (237 .71 pts).
Canadians Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro rebounded from a disastrous performance the day before. Thirteenth after the short program, they climbed to 10th place in the free program, which made them smile again.
The other couple in the country, Vanessa James and Eric Radford, remained in 12th place. Under the direction of their coach and choreographer Julie Marcotte, the Quebecers obtained 117.96 points for the free program. James landed badly following a thrown triple lutz, which cost the couple valuable points. The rest of their routine went off without a hitch. Overall, James and Radford finish with a score of 180.99.
Then in duet with Meagan Duhamel, Eric Radford had won a silver medal in the pairs in 2018 at the PyeongChang Games. For her part, Vanessa James lived her Olympic baptism in Beijing.
Sui Wenjing and Han Cong, aged 26 and 29 respectively, are only the second Olympic champions in the history of Chinese figure skating, after Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo, crowned in 2010 in pairs.
This title also allowed China to move from 6th to 3rd place in the medal table, just ahead of the United States.
Ahead of the final day of competition on Sunday, when China no longer has a chance to improve its record, the host country has increased its medal record at a Winter Games edition, with four units more than the precedent which dated from the 2010 Olympics (11 medals, including 5 in gold).
