Feb. 6 (UPI) —<\/span> Kamila Valieva of Russia stunned fans during her Winter Olympics debut while becoming the fourth woman in the competition’s history to land a triple axel.<\/p>\n Valieva, 15, scored an incredible 90.18 points — 15 points ahead of second-place finisher Wakaba Higuchi of Japan, who scored 74.74 points. Madeline Schizas of Canada came in third with 69.60 points.\n<\/p>\n<\/article>\n The performance by Valieva in the women’s short program solidified Russia’s lead in the team figure skating event after the United States dropped to second place.<\/p>\n Besides the triple axel, Valieva executed a triple flip, a triple Lutz with a triple toe loop as well as level four change foot combination spin, step sequences, a fly camel spin and a layback spin. She performed to the song In Memoriam by Kirill Richter.\n<\/p>\n “I am thrilled to be at the Olympic Games and I did everything I could today,” she said after the performance, according to a press release. “And I am very happy that I brought maximum amount of points to my team.”<\/p>\n Her teammate Mark Kondratiuk, performing to the song Jesus Christ Superstar from the musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, came in second place during the men’s single free skating program with a score of 181.65.\n<\/p>\n Yuma Kagiyama of Japan came in first with a score of 208.94 and Vincent Zhou of the United States came in third with a score of 171.44. Kagiyama became the first skater to ever land a quadruple loop during an Olympic competition.\n<\/p>\n Zhou’s teammate Karen Chen fell on a triple toe loop and finished fifth in the women’s competition, though the U.S. still holds its second-place ranking ahead of the final programs in the team event Monday.<\/p>\n “I’m definitely disappointed,” Chen told Sports Illustrated after the program.<\/p>\n Zhu Yi, a figure skater representing China who was born in California, also fell and crashed into a wall during her performance to the song Paint It Black — earning just 47.03 points after a 1-point deduction.\n<\/p>\n She faced harsh criticism from the Chinese public on social media, according to CNN. Within hours, posts about her fall had received 200 million views with comments calling it “disgraceful.”<\/p>\n “I’m upset and a little embarrassed,” a tearful Zhu told CNN after the program. “I guess I felt a lot of pressure because I know everybody in China was pretty surprised with the selection for ladies’ singles and I just really wanted to show them what I was able to do but unfortunately I didn’t.”\n<\/p>\n 1\/5 Kamila Valieva of Russia performs a spin during the Women’s Single Figure Skating Short Program competition in the Capital Indoor Stadium at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics on Sunday. Valieva placed first with a score of 90.18. Photo by Richard Ellis\/UPI | License Photo Feb. 6 (UPI) — Kamila Valieva of Russia stunned fans […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":978825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-978824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=978824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=978824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=978824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=978824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Beijing Winter Olympics: Photos of the day<\/h3>\n
![\"Beijing](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Beijing-Winter-Olympics-Photos-of-the-day_1_1.jpg\" "\\"Beijing")
<\/p><\/div>\n
\n
1\/5<\/p>\n
![\"Russia's](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Russias-Kamila-Valieva-stuns-during-figure-skating-team-event.jpg\" "\\"Russia's")
<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Kamila Valieva of Russia performs a spin during the Women’s Single Figure Skating Short Program competition in the Capital Indoor Stadium at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics on Sunday. Valieva placed first with a score of 90.18. Photo by Richard Ellis\/UPI | License Photo<\/div>\n\n