SOCHI, February 10. /Itar-Tass/. During the Olympic flower ceremony, following the last day’s figure skating team event, Russian fans did not express any surprise by the fact that the national team had clinched a victory beforehand. They said they took such an outcome for granted, for the team was steadily building up its advantage during the three days of the competition.
The stands of the Iceberg Skating Palace, where the competition was taking place, were crowded to capacity till the last day of the pair event, which was the ice dance free program. Russian ice hockey team players Ilya Kovalchuk, Alexander Radulov and Alexander Svitov were the only ones who left the skating palace during the break between the women’s free program and pair events because they had to return to the Olympic Village as it was getting dark.
One of the fans from Novosibirsk told Itar-Tass he was very glad the Russians won the gold. “We were a bit upset that our team had no medals on the first day of the Olympics, while now we got three medals just in one day and that is fantastic”, he said the day before Russia’s Albert Demchenko won the silver in the luge.
Figure skating devotees were certain that the victory could not have escaped from Russians anyway. “The Russian team was leading the competition. We saw all the scores with our own eyes, so we did not doubt the victory”, said one of the spectators.
The interviewed fans arrived in Sochi from Novosibirsk for three days only and decided to attend the figure skating competition to watch it live for the first time. “Russia has always been leading in figure skating, just like Canada has been in ice hockey and the Netherlands in speed skating. We came here not only to see the champion Yevgeny Plushenko, but also the rising figure skating star Yuliya Lipnitskaya. I once watched a European Championship were she participated. That is a girl!” said one of the fans. He added that it was a great pity they had to leave in two days' time, but promised to come back to Sochi’s gorgeous sport halls someday, if the opportunity ever offered itself.
Another group of fans, a family from Moscow, also visited Sochi for a very short one-day period and wished they could stay much longer. The couple and their 7-year-old son visited the Russia-Germany women’s ice hockey match and the figure skating event, where they got the chance to take a picture with the famous Russian showman Ivan Urgant and even to see the country’s president, Vladimir Putin, who also attended the competition. “We came here to feel the scale of the Olympics and to support our country. After the figure skating pair free program one could already see Russians would win, one could feel we were close to success. The Olympic Games are much bigger and a far more interesting event in comparison to the Channel One Ice Hockey Cup we visited in December 2013”, said the family man.