Olympic figure skating results 2018: Weinjing Sui, Con Hang lead in pairs short program

Figure skating picked back up in the Winter Olympics with the individual events on Tuesday evening, headlined by the pairs short program. China’s Weinjing Sui and Con Hang are the leaders, barely edging out the Olympic Athletes of Russia team of Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov. These two teams are set to be the top contenders heading into Wednesday’s pairs free skate, which will determine the medal winners.

It was another Chinese team — Xiaoyu Liu and Hao Zhang — that had the lead halfway through the event, managing a qualifying score of 75.58. Hang and Sui, took over first place with an 82.39 score, putting together an incredible run set to K.D. Lang’s version of “Hallejuah.”

One of the top medal contenders this year is Canada’s duo of Eric Radford and Meagan Duhamel. Much like in the team event, they performed to a cover of “With or Without You” and put in a strong program, with 76.82 being a personal best score for the team. Look for them to make a big push for the gold on Wednesday.

Germany’s Aljona Savchenko and Bruno Massot are also expect to contend for a medal, but a couple of minor slips hurt their final score. At fourth place, they’re on the outside looking in right now.

The final tea, of the night was Russian athletes Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov, the gold medal favorites. They dominated the team event and pulled off another great program here, though the final score wasn’t enough to vault them past the Chinese. With less than one point separating the teams, there will be zero margin for error in the final round.

The only American pair to qualify was the husband-and-wife team of Alexa Scimeca Knierim and Chris Knierim, who finished 14th place.

Sixteen of the 22 pairs that competed Tuesday will be moving on the finals, which begins Wednesday evening at 8:30 p.m. ET.