Japan Ties Record Winter Games Medals with Figure Skating Pairs Gold

(The final paragraph should have read, “…its first-round record…,” instead of as sent. A substitute story follows.) Japan Ties Record Winter Games Medals with Figure Skating Pairs Gold Milan, Feb. 16 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara secured gold in figure skating pairs at the Milan-Cortina Olympics on Monday, the first Olympic medal of any color in the event for Japan. With this, Japan’s medal tally at the ongoing Games reached 18, equaling its all-time Winter Olympics record marked in the previous 2022 event held in Beijing. The figure skating pairs medal, the country’s fourth gold at the ongoing sporting festival, matched its highest-ever gold medal haul in a Winter Olympics held outside Japan. The country has bagged five silver and nine bronze medals at Milan-Cortina. After getting off to a shaky start in fifth place in the short program, 6.90 points behind the leading German pair, on Sunday, Miura, 24, and Kihara, 33, hammered out a free skate world record score of 158.13 on Monday, earning a total score of 231.24 to clinch the top spot on the podium. This was Japan’s fourth Olympic figure skating gold, after Shizuka Arakawa for the women’s event at the 2006 Turin Games in Italy and Yuzuru Hanyu for the men’s event in the 2014 Sochi Games in Russia and the 2018 Pyeongchang Games in South Korea. “The happiest thing for me is that we gathered ourselves together from our mistake (in Sunday’s short program) and showcased our strength we have gained through our experience,” Miura said. Kihara said that while he led the pair in the previous Beijing Olympics, Miura “helped me and drove me forward” at the Milan-Cortina Olympics. “I’m truly glad that we didn’t give up,” he added. Elsewhere at the Milan-Cortina Games, Japan finished sixth in the men’s ski jumping super team event, not helped by the competition being cut short due to bad weather. In women’s curling, Japan’s team Fortius lost to Canada, bringing its first-round record to one win and five losses. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]