MADRID, 12 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Spanish skaters Olivia Smart and Adrián Díaz have made it to the figure skating ice dance final at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, after finishing ninth in the short program, and will seek at least an Olympic diploma in Monday’s free program.
The couple, who were facing their first Olympic date as a duo, jumped onto the track at the Capital Indoor Stadium in the Chinese city with the aim of positioning themselves in the ‘Top 10’, something they more than fulfilled.
With ‘Proud Mary’ by Tina Turner as the soundtrack, the Catalan and the Sheffield performer put on a spectacular performance that earned them a score of 77.70 -very close to the Spanish record and similar to that achieved in the European Championship (77.99)- and catapulted directly to the final.
Thus, they achieved one of the 20 access places to the final on Monday (2:15 a.m. Spanish peninsular time), where the participants must develop the free program in search of the Olympic medals or diploma.
French Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron dominated the action on Saturday with 90.83 points, ahead of the Russian duo of Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov (88.85) and Americans Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue (87.13).