U.S. Figure Skating, the governing body of the sport in the United States, has more than 140,000 members. The chances of being among the four skaters that compete in the pairs competition at the Winter Olympics is 0.000003 percent.
On Wednesday, USF St. Petersburg’s Felicia Zhang and her partner Nathan Bartholomay finished 12th in the pairs figure skating competition at the 2014 Winter Olympic in Sochi, Russia. But just making it to the Sochi meant they had already accomplished something special.
In the second day of competition for the pairs figure skating Zhang and Batholomay scored 110.31 in their free skate. Their combined score with the short program from Tuesday was 167.21.
On Tuesday, the pair scored 56.90 in the short program. They entered Wednesday in 14th place with no hope of medaling but scored well enough to finish 12th of 16 teams.
The pairs competition is split into to two routines, the short program and the free skate. The short program is two minutes and 50 seconds long and requires specific elements skaters need to demonstrate. There are automatic deductions for not being able to complete a particular element.
The free skate is longer than the short program. Pairs skaters have four minutes and 30 seconds to complete their routine. Despite what calling the routine a free skate would imply, skaters have to execute a certain number of elements to avoid any automatic deductions. Skaters receive a 10 percent score bonus in the second half of their routines in consideration of the difficulty of performing some elements later in a routine.
The free skate happened at 10:45 a.m. eastern on Wednesday. Viewers not wanting to have the event spoiled had to wait until the primetime broadcast on NBC, which did not feature Zhang and Bartholomay’s routine.
Russia took both gold and silver in the event with Germany taking bronze. Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov finished first in both rounds to take the gold medal. The other Russian team of Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov had a combined score 218.68.
The other American pairing finished ninth in the competition. The veteran team of Marissa Castelli and Simon Shnapir had a combined score of 187.82.
