XIII Winter Olympics Games - Lake Placid 1980 | Pairs LP (Highlights)

Figure skating at the 1980 Winter Olympics took place at the Olympic Center Arena in Lake Placid, New York, United States.

The 1980 figure skating competition was contested indoors at the Olympic Fieldhouse. There were only minor changes to the program and scoring system used since 1976. In men’s and ladies’ compulsory figures, these were reduced from three groups to two groups for the draw for the figures to be skated. This meant that skaters had to train for fewer figures. In the pairs, the short program was increased from 25% to 28.57% (2/7th) of the total pairs’ score.

Top 4 Pairs - in order of skating:
1. Marina Pestova / Stanislav Leonovich (URS)
2. Irina Rodnina / Alexander Zaitsev (URS)
3. Manuela Mager / Uwe Bewersdorff (GDR)
4. Marina Cherkasova / Sergei Shakhrai (URS)

Each judge ranked each pair by Ordinal Placement from first through last place. The Ordinal Placement for each judge was based on Total Points awarded by that judge to the pairs. The points were based on 28.57% (2/7th) for the Original Program, and 71.43% (5/7th) for Free Skating. Final placement was determined by a Majority Placement rule. Thus, if a pair were ranked first by a majority of the judges, that pair was placed first overall, and the process was repeated for each place. Ties were broken by a Subsequent Majority rule, i.e., if the pairs were ranked for the same position by the same number of judges, Majority Placement for the next higher position for each pair determined who was ranked higher.

The tiebreakers were then, in order, 1) Number of Majority Placements, 2) Total Ordinals of Majority, 3) Total Ordinals, 4) Total Points.

The greatest pair of the 1970s was the husband-wife team of Irina Rodnina and Aleksandr Zaytsev. Together they have won the World Title every year from 1973-78, and the Europeans in 1973-78 and 1980. In 1979, Rodnina took the year off to have a baby. They came back in 1980 to win the Olympic Gold. For Rodnina, it was her third consecutive gold medal, having won in 1972 with Aleksey Ulanov, making her only the second figure skater to win three consecutive gold medals, after Sonja Henie. She is the first pair skater to win the Olympic title with two different partners, followed only by Artur Dmitriev of Russia. Set to compete at the 1980 Worlds, she withdrew with a shoulder injury and thus retired after Lake Placid, having won three Olympic gold medals and 10 World Championships.