Japan’s Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara pulled out the best performance of their careers to move from fifth overnight to grab Olympic figure skating pairs gold on Monday.
The Japanese had been trailing after errors in their short programme but sealed gold with a rousing performance to the “Gladiator” soundtrack to give their country not only a first Olympic gold medal in the pairs event, but a first medal of any colour.
They knelt on the ice and wept after their fast-moving and dynamic skate brought the crowd to their feet in the Milano Ice Skating Arena.
Their routine earned the Japanese personal best scores in both the free skate (158.13 points) and overall, with 231.24 points.
The two-time world champions admitted they thought they had let gold slip through their fingers on Sunday night as they trailed 6.9 points behind Hase and Volodin. “I wanted to switch gear right away, forget about what happened yesterday,” said Miura.
“Ryuichi was crying this morning so I felt like I needed to be strong and supportive for him and help him focus,” she said. Kihara said he had been “feeling really down” and blamed himself for the slip-up, conceding: “We did not think we would win.”
“Thanks to my great partner and my coach we were able to just focus on our programme tonight.”
Georgia’s Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava took silver nearly ten points behind with 221.75 as overnight leaders Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin of Germany won bronze with 219.09.
Miura, 24, and 33-year-old Kihara had helped Japan win team silver for the second consecutive Olympics earlier in the Games. “I’m so happy for them. Yesterday they were heartbroken,” the Japanese pairs’ coach Bruno Marcotte told journalists.
“They were still a little bit shaken in practice today but the message was ‘today you have to be the best in the world’. “I told them no matter what happens in five years, in 10 years, 20 years, you want to be remembered for this moment that you gave everything.
“Create magic and skate with your heart.” Marcotte said he showed them it was possible as at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games the winning German team had been trailing by a similar margin after the first day.
“I showed them it was possible and to never stopped believing,” their coach said. “I told them just to be themselves, stay true to what you are. Skate with your heart, make magic, you guys have each other.”
The Japanese had already excelled in the team event, breaking their personal bests in each of their programmes. Kihara’s back problems and the effects of a dislocated shoulder that Miura suffered in December had nonetheless plagued their season.
Miura injured her shoulder during warm-ups at the Japanese championships in December, before popping it back into place and skating the short programme.
They still had to withdraw from the free skate the following day.
Their free skate route at the Milan-Cortina Games was, in fact, meant to illustrate their struggle against these difficulties. The Germans paid for mistakes in their free skate to music by Max Richter, achieving just fourth best for that routine.
“It’s amazing that we brought home a medal in our first Olympics together, it doesn’t matter what colour,” said Hase, who finished just 16th at the Beijing Olympics with another partner.
Russian-born Volodin teamed up with Hase in 2022 and received German citizenship last year. The pair were world silver medallists behind the Japanese last year.
European champions Metelkina and Berulava, who began skating together in 2023, achieved what was a first ever Winter Olympics medal for Georgia.
They were among 11 Russian-born skaters competing for eight different countries in the pairs event.
Russian and Belarusian skaters have been banned from international competition since Moscow’s offensive on Ukraine began in 2022.
Defending Olympic champions Sui Wenjing and Han Cong of China finished fifth with 208.64 in their skate to “A Tapestry of a Legendary Land” after struggling with their jumps.