Photo: Li Hao/GT

Figure skating is one of the most popular events of the Winter Olympics due to its high artistic value, and Sunday's figure skating team event for the women's short program was no exception. Before the event started, hundreds of spectators and journalists were waiting at the figure skating arena.

During the warm-up, there was a participatory question-and-answer session, with most people at the scene able to answer all the questions posed by the host correctly, indicating their familiarity with the discipline.

Only five of 10 teams advanced to the next stage of the figure skating competition: the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), Team USA, Japan, Canada and China.

It was the first appearance on the Olympic stage for 19-year-old Chinese female figure skater Zhu Yi, who received a warm and encouraging welcome from the audience as she started her short program. 

Zhu tumbled in her first combination, and had an error in her third jump, a triple loop, however she was able to pull herself together, and with encouragement from her teammates and the audience, she finished out the rest of the program with a score of 47.03.

The final skater was Kamila Valieva of the ROC. Wearing a purple, flowing dress, Valieva, 15, landed each of her jumps softly and floated through her program without showing even a tiny of mistake.

After Valieva completed each move, her teammates cheered for her and the Global Times reporter heard gasps of admiration from the assembled reporters. At the end of her routine, the applause lasted nearly half a minute, with other athletes giving her a standing ovation. 

The spectators at the arena tried hard to make a convivial and supportive atmosphere for the skaters. With the cheers and applause from the audiences, the spirit of competition and their attitude were better than in the audience-less training sessions. All the athletes bowed and waved to the spectators after they finished their program. 

Among the teams' preparation areas, those arranged by the skaters of Team China and Germany are the most fancy.

In the Chinese area, skaters hung two strings of lanterns and decorated it with the Chinese character for "fortune" on the wall.

German athletes wore garlands and stuck flowers with the colors of the German flag - red, black and yellow - on the wall behind them.

Athletes also clapped, screamed and even stomped in the preparation areas when their teammates were competing.