By Scott Mammoser, Team FSO staff writer
Photos by Robin Ritoss
MILAN, ITALY –Figure skaters were well represented during Friday’s Milano-Cortina Olympic Opening Ceremony at Stadio San Siro. Eleven nations chose figure skaters to lead their delegations into the 100-year-old stadium.
Junhwan Cha was only 16 when he placed 15th at PyeongChang Olympics in 2018, in his home country of the Republic of Korea. Now at 24, he gleams with pride in carrying the Korean flag.
“It was such an honor to be the flag bearer,” Cha said after Saturday’s team event. “It was a grateful experience for me in front of our team. I was so happy and so grateful. My first Olympics I was the youngest, and now I am the oldest on the (skating) team, but I am grateful because there is so much I can learn from the younger skaters.”
Cha was also fifth at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. He participated in the team event for Korea, which finished seventh overall. Cha will compete in the individual men’s event Tuesday and Friday in Milan.
Luka Berulava and Diana Davis of Georgia compete in different disciplines with different partners on the ice, but they teamed together to carry the flag of the Caucasus nation. He competes in pairs with Anastasiia Metelkina, she in ice dance with Gleb Smolkin.
“Thank you to my country for believing in me and giving me a chance,” Berulava said during Friday’s team event.”
He was ninth at the 2022 Olympics with his former partner Karina Safina, while Davis and Smolkin were 14th in ice dance those same games. Both Metelkina and Berulava and Davis and Smolkin are competing in the team event for Georgia, which was one of five team to qualify for the free skates/free dances. With three events left, Georgia is in fifth place.
The British Union Jack is one of the few to have appeared at every modern Olympics – winter and summer, along with Switzerland and France. Ice dancer Lilah Fear continued the tradition on Friday. She and partner Lewis Gibson are the reigning world bronze medalists and were 10th at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. They participated in the team event for Great Britain, which finished ninth.
“We’ve (Lewis and I) been dreaming about the opening ceremony, ” Lilah said after the team rhythm dance on Friday. “We didn’t get the chance in Beijing, and I just want to stay for everything,”
Fellow ice dancer Olivia Smart was the Spanish selection for the opening ceremony. She is teaming with Tim Dieck in 2026 and was eighth in 2022.
Pairs team Karina Akopova and Nikita Rakhmanin of Armenia and ice dancers Saulius Ambrulevicius and Allison Reed of Lithuania also were flag bearers. In addition, Donovan Carrillo of Mexico, Alexandra Feigin of Bulgaria and Vladimir Litvintsev of Azerbaijan are returning for their second Olympic Games. Julia Sauter of Romania and Mariia Seniuk of Israel are debuting this year.
