Canada will not win a medal in figure skating at the Winter Olympics for the first time since 1980 — though that could change after the fact.
With Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro and Vanessa James and Eric Radford finishing 10th and 12th, respetively, in pairs on Saturday at the Beijing Games, Canada’s last hope for a figure skating medal ended.
Canada could be upgraded to bronze from fourth in the team event if the Russians are stripped of their gold medal following further investigation into Kamila Valieva’s positive doping test.
The lack of a figure skating medal isn’t a huge surprise, despite the fact Canada led the way with four medals in the sport four years ago in Pyeongchang.
Ice dance gold medallists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir were the stars of that team and have now retired. Women’s bronze medallist Kaetlyn Osmond also no longer is competing for rebuilding Canada.
Ice dancers Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier were considered Canada’s best bet for a medal after winning bronze at last year’s World Championship, but they settled for seventh in Beijing.
Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Sorensen also had a top-10 finish in the ice dance, placing ninth.
Canada missed the top 10 in men’s and women’s events.
Sui Wenjing and Han Cong of China won the pairs gold with Russian pairs finishing second through fourth.
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