Israeli figure skater falls to 21st place finish

Israel’s Alexei Bychenko finished his figure skating campaign at the Sochi Winter Olympic Games in 21st place.

The 26-year-old entered Friday’s free program in 22nd position after recording a result of 62.44 points in Thursday’s short program, and only managed to move up one place as he registered 114.62 points, which also saw him fall on the ice as he performed to Nostradamus’ Maksim Mrvica.

Bychenko ended with a score of 177.06,  short of his personal best time of  203.76 which he achieved at the European Championships last month.

Short track speed skater Vladislav Bykanov competes in the 500m heats on Tuesday, after failing to reach the quarter-finals of the 1000m event, where he finished his his heat in third place in a time of 1:27.796 minutes. He had earlier  missed out on a place in the 1500m semi-finals by 76 hundredths of a second.

Skier Virgile Vandeput will be the final Israeli to compete when he takes part in the giant slalom on Wednesday, before also racing in the slalom on Saturday.