Kerrs admit this could be their Olympic farewell

From James Toney, Sportsbeat, in Vancouver

SEVEN-time British figure skating champions Sinead and John Kerr have admitted this could be their farewell appearance at the Olympic Games.

MIXED FEELINGS: Sinead and John Kerr bend over backwards to impress the judges - but sit eighth ahead of Monday's decisive free dance (Getty Images)

The Scottish siblings produced a solid skate in the ice dance original program but were penalised heavily for errors on some elements.

It leaves them in eighth overall with a growing margin to close on the French couples immediately above them - Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat and Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder.

Canada's Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir lead the way after their fiery Flamenco got the crowd to their feet while world champions, Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin, dropped down to third, as controversy continues over their costume choice.

"I'm sort of viewing this as my last Olympics but you should never say never," admitted Sinead.

"I just told myself to go out there and enjoy it, and I think I did enjoy it as much as you can in a competition, because you also have to stay focussed."

Brother John admitted he was at fault for a shaky twizzles section, the same element that let him down at NHK Trophy in Tokyo last November.

"I had a little error on the twizzle," he admitted.

"I think they should just get rid of twizzles from competition, to be honest.

"Other than that, overall, I'm pretty happy with our performance. You can't control the scores.

"All we can do is go out there and try to get a personal best in the free dance, and hopefully we can move up a few more spots."

British team-mates Penny Coomes and Nicholas Buckland were never going to leave Vancouver with any medals - but they were certainly winners with the crowd.

The 20-year old couple are loving every second of their first senior international event and produced a solid original dance to sit in 20th place overall.

But their scores weren't popular with the audience in the Pacific Coliseum, who booed the judges after the Riverdance inspired routine proved one of the evening's big crowd pleasers.

"I think it helped that we really picked up an upbeat tune and that they had something to clap along to,"said Coomes.

"Everyone around the world knows Riverdance and I'm pleased they enjoyed our interpretation of it."

"For us to get almost exactly the same score as we got at European is great because this is such a step up in class.

"The biggest thing we can take away from this is we pleased the crowd, if we can please the judges as well it would be great."

 

 AS IT HAPPENS: Day ten of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver