The first figure skating medals of 2010 will go around six necks tonight as the pairs’ competition wraps up with the long program. There were some terrific short programs last night. The Chinese pair of Shen/Xhao were the favorites going into last night and I can see why. Their short program was excellent. Just very smooth and expressive. They were the first pair on the ice and set a super high standard. Evora/Ladwig from the US are in tenth place, but they were in second for a while, so that was exciting. They had a very clean program. I am looking forward to seeing how it all shakes out tonight! I do miss the old 6.0 scoring system which went by the wayside a few years ago. It seemed easier to understand (at least for the audience) than the new system. You could also rag on a judge from a particular country who seemed to be giving abnormally low scores to everyone. The new system doesn’t display the individual judges’ scores. The men’s short program is tomorrow with three Americans competing, as well as the Russian skater Plushenko who won gold in ’06 and silver in ’02.