February 9 is a date to remember in the history of sports in Mexico. On the ice rink of the indoor stadium in Beijing, Donovan Carrillo will compete in the figure skating long program. He is the only Latin American in the final and the only Mexican who has managed to reach this stage in a few Winter Olympic Gamesin addition to returning to our country in this competition after 30 years.
To advance among the top 24 skaters, Donovan earned his season-high mark with a score of 79.69. The long program will be presented with the music: ‘Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps’ by Daniel Boaventura and Carlos Rivera, ‘María’ by Ricky Martin and ‘Sway’ by Dean Martin.
The highlights of the program will be the Four toe, Triple Axel, Triple Loop, Triple Flip, Triple Lutz combined with Triple Toe, Triple Flip with Euler and Triple Salchow, Triple Lutz with Double Axel.
Last Monday he took to the ice rink with Carlos Santana’s song, Black Magic Woman. The medal that appeared on her face at the end of her short program is an amulet that belonged to her grandmother and that her mother gave her as a symbol of family unity.
The 22-year-old skater has a work process of almost 14 yearsa large part of them with coach Gerardo Núñez.
“In this discipline there are many powers such as Japan, Canada, the United States and the Russians, these athletes are almost born with skates, they are the strongest in the event; I think that, like Donovan, other athletes who are representing their country, the result will be that effort of years to reach an Olympic tournament. Like all Mexicans, he has that spark, he is very charismatic and has very good body expression in the dance and that will help him have a good artistic and choreographic projection, “said Núñez.
For tonight’s final, Carrillo appears in site 6 with 79.69 pointsqualification with which he is close to the Swiss Lukas Britschgi, the Russian Andrei Mozalev and the Ukrainian Ivan Shmuratko.
As for the strong medal candidates, there is the Italian Daniel Grassl, number one in the classification, the American Nathan Chen and the japanese yuzuru hanyu.
The 27-year-old Japanese skater is looking to become the first athlete in his specialty to win three consecutive golds, after his successes in Sochi 2014 and PyeongChang 2018. Hanyu is the big favorite although he will have tough competition from American Nathan Chen, three-time champion of the world, and in his compatriot Shoma Uno.
The broadcast of the competition is at 7:30 p.m. Mexico City time, a signal carried live by MARCA Claro and Claro Sports, You Tube and Totalplay channel 521.