The Sochi Winter Olympics is just the latest stage to have a Barbadian presence as French figure skater Vanessa James had a creditable seventh-place showing in the Team Pairs event last week.
The daughter of Barbadian June Burke-James, the Canadian-born French national paired with Morgan Ciprès to finish with a score of 57.45.
It proved a significant step-up from the 14th-place finish four years ago for James, whose No. 1 goal entering the competition was to place within the top ten.
But the 26-year-old figure skater is no stranger to the big stage, having made history by becoming the first black woman to win the British National Championships. With her partner Ciprès, James is a two-time French national champion and has won four international medals while finishing in the top ten at both the European and World Championships. The Russian pair of Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov was first in the event with a score of 83.79, followed by Canadians Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford (73.10) and the Chinese pair of Chenf Peng and Hao Zhang (71.01).
That event serves as just part of an overall team competition.
