Ice skating at the Beijing Winter Olympics: competitions, schedule, favorites

Created: 01/12/2022, 05:32 PM

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir from Canada 2018 at the Olympic Games © Morry Gash / dpa

Both men and women of different nations will fight individually, as a couple or as a team at the Olympic Winter Games 2022 for the gold medal in ice skating.

All important information about the schedule, favorites and the broadcast can be found here.

Beijing - The Chinese capital will host the 2022 Winter Olympics from February 4th to 20th.

The classic ice skating is one of the seven sports.

Among other things, medals are awarded in figure skating.

Ice skating at the 2022 Winter Olympics: The sport of figure skating

Figure skating is a sport that depends on the skillful execution of jumps, steps and pirouettes on ice skates. Dance and ballet elements are combined with the art skating elements and accompanied by music. This creates a choreography on the ice. The origins of this form of ice skating come from Great Britain. The first competition took place there in 1814. Figure skating is an official sport at the Olympic Games and has been since the first Games in France in 1924. Athletes from various nations will compete against each other at the Winter Olympics in 2022.

Ice Skating at the 2022 Winter Olympics: Competitions

Ice skating at the 2022 Winter Olympics is divided into five sub-disciplines:

• Women's individual run

• Men's individual run

• Pair skating

• Ice dancing

• Team competition

The competitions are held in the capital city hall stadium.

Each of the five disciplines consists of a short freestyle and a freestyle - also known as a short program and a freestyle.

The runners receive two scores: the Technical Element Scores (TES) and the Program Component Scores (PCS).

The latter are mainly based on artistic performance, while the TES assess the level of difficulty and execution.

The short program serves as a qualification round.

Only the participants with the highest number of points are allowed to show their freestyle.

At the end, the points from the short freestyle and freestyle are added up and a winner is determined from them.

Ice skating at the 2022 Winter Olympics: favorites

One of the current favorites for the 2022 Winter Olympics is undisputedly one of the men’s Yuzuru Hanyū. The Japanese has already won gold twice at the last two winter games. Should he win again, he will be the first man since 1928 to win the title three times in a row. The three-time world champion Nathan Chen is considered his greatest opponent. The American also won the Olympic bronze medal in the team competition in 2018. Another important name in men's ice skating is Shōma Uno. He, too, comes from Japan, won the Olympic silver medal in 2018 and is the first runner to land the quadruple flip in an international competition.

Among the women’s favorites are the Japanese Satoko Miyahara and Rika Kihira.

Rika Kihira was the first woman to land the jump combination of a triple axel and a triple toe loop and made history with it.

However, the top favorites are the women from Russia.

However, it is not yet certain which of them will go to Beijing.

Sui Wenjing and Han Cong from China are the top contenders for the gold medal in pair skating, while Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron from France are strong contenders for the ice dance title.

Ice Skating at the 2022 Winter Olympics: Dates and Broadcast

The schedule for the individual competitions is as follows:

• Women's individual run: February 15th short program, February 17th freestyle

• Men's individual run: February 8th short program, February 10th freestyle

• Pair skating: February 18th short program, February 19th freestyle

• Ice dancing: February 12th short program, February 14th freestyle

• Team competition: February 4th, 6th and 7th

The parent company of Eurosport owns the broadcasting rights in Europe.

The public broadcasters ARD and ZDF have sub-licenses and will broadcast the 2022 Winter Olympics extensively.

The most important ice skating competitions can be viewed free of charge on television, live stream and online media libraries.

Eurosport offers the most extensive range with the Eurosport Player.

Here it is possible to watch all competitions in every discipline in full.

This stream is connected to a paid subscription.