Figure skating-Italy's Rizzo and Grassl cheered despite mistakes after team bronze party

MILAN, Feb 10 :  

Home support for Italian figure skaters Matteo Rizzo and Daniel Grassl stayed strong on Tuesday despite errors in the men’s singles short programme that dimmed hopes of more medals days after the duo helped to secure Italy’s landmark team bronze.

When their names were announced, the crowd at the Milan Ice Skating Arena raised the volume, cheering as the two men stepped on to the ice to warm up and throughout their routines.

Grassl finished fourth with 93.46 points, more than nine points behind France’s Adam Siao Him Fa in third, while Rizzo stumbled on the landing of his quadruple toe loop, ending 16th with 84.30.

“Too much adrenaline, so a big mistake in terms of points, of course,” said Rizzo, whose name was spelled out loudly by the home crowd before he skated to the orchestral version of Silverlines by Maneskin frontman Damiano David. “But overall the performance I think was great. The audience was great.”

For both Italian skaters, the distance from the podium appears significant ahead of Friday’s free skate, which will decide the medals, with the top two spots locked for American Ilia Malinin and Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama.

Rizzo said getting his focus back after the team bronze had not been easy, either mentally or physically.

“I’m not joking when I say I received more than 10,000 messages,” he said. “I couldn’t keep up with them — not just because of the time it would take, but because I had to skate the short and reset my mind. It was a very challenging moment for me,” he said, smiling.

Grassl said he wanted to keep dreaming ahead of the free. “It know it is difficult but I feel really good, training has gone very well, and I’ll face it with joy, just as we did today,” he said, acknowledging that an