Armenia’s Pair Skaters Make Historic Olympic Debut, Finish 14th Overall Among World’s Top Duos in First Appearance

Karina Akopova and Nikita Rakhmanin ranked 14th out of 16 pairs who qualified for the free program at their first Winter Olympic Games. Competing at the world’s biggest winter sports stage, the Armenian duo delivered two programs over two days of competition.

In the free skate, they performed to music from the film Slumdog Millionaire. During the routine, they made several mistakes. Akopova fell twice on jumps, which had a clear impact on their final result. Despite the errors, the pair completed the program and received 114.39 points for the free skate.

After the short program the previous day, they had earned 66.27 points. With a combined total of 180.66 points from both segments, they secured 14th place overall.

For Akopova and Rakhmanin, this was their Olympic debut. Reaching the Games and competing among the world’s strongest pairs was already a major achievement. Performing on the Olympic ice placed them among the top figure skating duos in the world and gave Armenia representation in one of the most technical and demanding winter sports.

The Olympic champions were Japan’s Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara, who won gold with 231.24 points. The silver medalists were Luka Berulava and Anastasia Metelkina of Georgia. The bronze medal went to Germany’s Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin.

Although the Armenian pair did not reach the podium, their participation and final ranking was a significant step for Armenian figure skating on the Olympic stage because they were Armenia’s very first pair skaters to compete at the Olympic Games since the 1990s.

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