(Photo credit score: James Lang-Imagn Images)
MILAN, Italy — Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea stated they had been thrilled to defy expectations and ship a clear, season-best pairs efficiency on the Winter Olympics on Sunday, a outcome that proved pivotal because the United States edged Japan to win a second straight gold within the crew occasion.
Kam and O’Shea scored 135.36 factors to earn seven factors for Team USA within the pairs section, and their fourth-place end preserved a slim cushion over Japan in a nerve-jangling ultimate day of competitors.
Because of their efficiency, the United States carried a two-point lead into the ladies’s free skate, the place Amber Glenn struggled and positioned third, leaving the U.S. tied with Japan getting into the boys’s free skate finale.
‘Quad God’ Ilia Malinin then delivered to safe the decisive level and clinch the title for the Americans.
‘Honestly, we had been simply prepared to return out and carry out,’ O’Shea informed Reuters on Monday.
‘We walked into the rink with an amazing angle. We had been able to go and felt prefer it was going to go nicely from the second we stepped in,’ he stated.
While Malinin is the overwhelming favourite for the boys’s gold, and Glenn and Alysa Liu are contenders on the ladies’s facet, Kam and O’Shea are carrying considerably decrease expectations going into the pairs occasion in Milan.
‘We’re grateful to have gone on the market and carried out nicely for our crew and gotten an additional level which may not have been anticipated of us,’ he added.
‘Then we noticed all people doing their greatest, and Ilia introduced it dwelling. It was superior.’
The efficiency was additionally redemption for the 21-year-old Kam and 34-year-old O’Shea, who had a fall throughout their brief program within the crew competitors two days earlier.
Kam, who was seen shedding tears of pleasure on the rostrum throughout the U.S. nationwide anthem, stated the second mirrored years of effort to ship beneath strain on the game’s largest stage.
‘I really feel like Danny and I’ve labored so laborious to get to this second and present what we’re able to,’ she stated.
‘We’ve been sort of clawing our manner there and to have the ability to put out a efficiency that we’re pleased with on one of many largest levels means a lot.’
‘And listening to the anthem feels so stable,’ Kam added.
‘It’s like, we did that, that’s taking part in for us. We represented our nation nicely and made all people proud.’
–Reuters, particular to Field Level Media