South Korea’s Yuna Kim entered the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics as the prohibitive favorite to capture a second straight gold medal in the Ladies’ singles competition, but heads were turned and mouths left agape as the 23-year-old fell to Russia’s Adelina Sotnikova on Thursday night at Iceberg Palace.
The 2010 Olympic champion Kim announced her retirement shortly after the shocking upset that handed host country Russia its first gold medal in one of the Winter Games most renowned and publicized events.
In a sport that’s been marred by questionable scores from judges countless times, Sotnikova finished more than five points ahead of Kim with a score of 224.59 to 219.11. Italy’s Carolina Kostner came in third at 216.73.
There will be cries that Kim was robbed and Russia was handed a medal for hosting the Games, considering Kim was nearly flawless in both of her skates, but according to the score cards the 23-year-old just wasn’t daring enough.
Components scores are supposed to mark a skater’s overall skills as well as the degree of difficulty in a routine, and according to USA Today Sotnikova squeezed by Kim 74.50 to 74.41.
However it’s important to note that the 17-year-old Sotnikova, with essentially nothing to lose compared to Kim, stacked her program with more high-flying and risk-taking moves, including seven triple jumps with five combined compared to six for Kim, according to USA Today.
In her comments after the competition, Kim remained poised to the media and wouldn’t allege any sort of scandal.
"Well, the scores are given by the judges so I am not in the right position to comment on it,” Kim said. “There's nothing that will change with my words. The most important thing for me is to participate in these Games. This was my last participation in the competition, so I'm happy with that."
The United States began the final medal stage with three skaters in contention for a medal, but Gracie Gold finished fourth with a combined score of 205.53, Ashley Wagner was seventh with 193.20, and Polina Edmunds came in ninth with 183.25.
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