Behnke and Sauve win pairs gold at Gangwon 2024
Canada reaches the top spot of the podium for the second day in a row.
Albertan duo Annika Behnke and Kole Sauve earned Canada’s first-ever figure skating gold medal at the Youth Olympic Games on Monday, winning the Gangwon 2024 pairs event as Canadian athletes reached the top step of the podium for the second day in a row.
Their victory comes one day after Canada picked up their first gold medals of the Games, in the freestyle skiing and snowboard big air events on Sunday.
Behnke and Sauve had a lead of just over two points after the short program portion of the event on Saturday, ahead of American duo Cayla Smith and Jared McPike. On Monday another strong showing saw Behnke and Sauve win the free skate portion of the competition by 12.03 points over the second-place United States, earning them the gold medal in convincing fashion — by 15.63 points in total.
The United States finished in second, with Spanish pair Carolina Campillo and Pau Vilella taking third.
The gold medal, and the margin by which they won, is also a testament to the pair’s resilience. Behnke stumbled early in the free skate on Monday, but Sauve held on and the duo recovered well. After the fault, which they were deducted a point for, the rest of their program went as planned — and they were the only team to do side-by-side triple jumps while the other pairs attempted doubles.
“I wasn’t expecting that to happen, but we parked it and kept on going,” said Behnke of the stumble. “You have to remember that everybody makes mistakes and you have to go out there and know that you made a mistake, but I’m going to go wrap it up. I was thinking just to stay calm, and I could still do it, and we did it and I’m really proud of myself.”
“I knew she was still going to go for it,” added Sauve. “There wasn’t a lot of speed but she went aggressively into it, which was good. After that happened and we got the twist done, we forgot about it. It’s a lot easier to have another person there with you, so they can bring you back up after a mistake. The program felt great, I was glad we could show what we could do.”
It is Canada’s first-ever gold medal in figure skating at the Winter Youth Olympic Games, but not the first time Canadians have reached the podium. Natalie D'Alessandro and Bruce Waddell won a bronze medal at Lausanne 2020 in the figure skating team event, while Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha had the same result at Lillehammer 2016. That version of the team event, which is no longer in the Youth Winter Olympic Games programme, was made up of athletes from several nations on each team.
The team event in Gangwon will be like the Olympic event, where each country faces each other. Behnke and Sauve will take part in that event on February 1 with the rest of Team Canada.
Gangwon 2024 is re-using a lot of the venues from the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics, including the Gangneung Ice Arena where Canadians won four medals six years ago. On this ice Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won the ice dance gold medal, Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford won pairs bronze, and Kaetlyn Osmond won a women’s singles bronze. Team Canada also took a famous gold medal in the team event.
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