Laura Barquero and Marco Zandron of Spain finished eleventh in the figure skating pairs final at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, one hundredth of the ‘Top 10’, while cross-country skier Imanol Rojo finished 21st in the 50 km freestyle.
After finishing ninth in Friday’s short program -63.34 points, up from last month’s European Championship (60.65)-, the Madrilenian and the Spanish-Italian stepped to the floor at the Capital Indoor Stadium.
The Spanish duo nailed the free program to the tunes of Andy Quin’s ‘Awakening’ and John Lennon’s ‘Imagine,’ scoring 118.02 points for a total score of 181.36, just 0.01 points behind the Canadian couple of Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro.
As a result, they finished third after six of the 16 duos performed, resuming their Friday position. Wenjing Sui and Cong Han (239.88) of China won gold, while Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov (239.25) of Russia and Anastasia Mishina and Aleksandr Galliamov (237.71) of Russia got silver and bronze, respectively.
IN 50 KM FREESTYLE, IMANOL ROJO, 21st
The Basque Imanol Rojo, for his part, was the last of the Royal Spanish Federation of Winter Sports (RFEDI) members to compete, and he did so with a meritorious twenty-first position in the 50 km freestyle test, his third in the Chinese appointment.
The man from Tolosa finished seventeenth in a competition shortened to 30 kilometers by the wind, but eventually fell positions to enter the ‘Top 20’, improving on his 33rd place in this distance reigns in both Sochi 2014 and PyeongChang 2018.
He repeats his twenty-first-place finish in the 15x15km skiathlon, where he beat Vicenç Vilarrubla’s 31st-place finish in Turin 2006 and Vancouver 2010.
He also finished 39th in the 15-kilometer Clásico. “I have a very favorable balance of these Olympic Games,” Rojo assured, “since I have improved all of my prior marks.”