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'Star Wars,' Adele, Disturbed Songs Bring Drama to Pairs Free Skating Olympics Program

By Lars Brandle
2/15/2018
By Lars Brandle
2/15/2018
Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford of Canada
XIN LI/Getty Images

Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford of Canada compete during the Pair Skating Free Skating at Gangneung Ice Arena on Feb. 15, 2018 in Gangneung, South Korea. 

Drama, action, tears: The pairs free skating program in Pyeongchang was an emotional rollercoaster as the world’s best performed to songs by Adele, Christina Aguilera, Disturbed and Star Wars favorites. 

China’s Yu Xiaoyu and Zhang Hao went cinematic with a Star Wars medley for their free skate session, which included "Luke & Leia" from the original trilogy and "Duel of the Fates" from the prequels. The routine was suitably stirring but errors meant the pair needed to pull a Jedi mind trick to take gold. Eventually, they finished well outside the medals in eighth place. 

Meanwhile, Canada’s Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford had better fortune with their routine to Adele’s “Hometown Glory” (the “clean” version) from the English singer’s debut album 19. The joyful, emotive performance earned the pair a bronze medal.

Also during the competition, Russian’s Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov performed to Christina Aguilera’s “Candyman” while popular French pair Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres delivered an impressive routine set to Disturbed’s cover of the Simon & Garfunkel classic “The Sound of Silence.” Both teams just missed out on medals, finishing fourth and fifth, respectively.

A rule change from skating's governing body has opened up the program in the 2018 Winter Olympics for a range of rock and pop soundtracks. In the early phases of the competition, songs from Coldplay, Imagine Dragons, Snow Patrol and many others have accompanied routines at the Gangneung Ice Arena.

For the record, German’s Savchenko Aljona and Massot Bruno took figure skating gold ahead of China’s Sui Wenjing and Han Cong.

By Lars Brandle
2/15/2018

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