Eric Radford and Meagan Duhamel scored big for Canada in their 2018 Winter Olympics debut Friday morning. The duo posted the second highest score of the evening for the pairs short program component of the team event, bested only by Russian pair Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov who gave a nearly flawless performance.
It’s the second Olympic Games for Radford and Duhamel. They finished seventh in the pairs event in Sochi in 2014. Later that year Radford came out publicly as gay. They went on to win world championships in 2015 and 2016.
At the end of the evening, NBC commentator Johnny Weir called the Canadian duo’s performance “cold” and “calculating,” as he gave his top marks for the night to the Russians. The judges obviously liked what they saw from Radford and Duhamel very much.
Canada leads the team event at the end of the first night, with 17 points. The United States is second with 14 points. Japan and “Olympic Athletes from Russia” each have 13 points.
The team event will continue and conclude this Saturday and Sunday.
