Women's Figure Skating Olympics 2014: When and Where to Catch Free Skate Event

After an exciting women's figure skating short program on Wednesday at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, all that's left is the free skate event before we see which woman will win the gold medal.

The short program featured a number of ups and downs, but there were a lot of ups as some of the women had some terrific performances. South Korea's Yuna Kim had the best performance of the group, taking the top score from Wednesday. Meanwhile, three members of Team USA made it in the top 10, as did two Russians.

With the stage set for an exciting finish, let's take a look at the current leaderboard after the short program, a look at the viewing information for the free program as well as a preview for Thursday.

Rank	Country	Skater	Score
1	South Korea	Yuna Kim	74.92
2	Russia	Adelina Sotnikova	74.64
3	Italy	Carolina Kostner	74.12
4	USA	Gracie Gold	68.63
5	Russia	Julia Lipnitskaia	65.23
6	USA	Ashley Wagner	65.21
7	USA	Polina Edmunds	61.04
8	Japan	Akiko Suzuki	60.97
9	France	Mae Berenice Meite	58.63
10	Germany	Nathalie Weinzierl	57.63

Viewing Information

Date: Thursday, Feb. 20

Time: 10 a.m. ET, 7 p.m. MSK

TV: NBC Sports Network

Live Stream: NBCOlympics.com

After a strong start with a score of 74.92 in the women's short program, Kim is currently the leader heading into Thursday, as all eyes will be on her once again.

At 23 years old, Kim is one of the most popular figure skaters in the world. She became a hero in South Korea after winning the gold at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, elevating her to star status. Not only did he win gold that year, but she also broke ISU world records for her short program, free skate and combined total scores that year.

Despite being such a successful figure skater, Kim had this to say after winning the short program, according to the Associated Press (via ESPN.com):

"

I was so nervous before my competition. When I finished, I was relaxed. I was nervous in warm-ups. My legs were shaking. I wasn't able to do my jumps. In my head, there were a lot of thoughts.

"

But Kim won't be the only figure skater with a lot of eyes on her. One of the biggest stars from Sochi this year has been 15-year-old Russian sensation Julia Lipnitskaia, who continues to make a name for herself.

Darko Bandic/Associated Press

Lipnitskaia was beginning to generate a bit of buzz at the 2014 European Championships in Budapest after winning gold, but that doesn't come close to what she did during the Olympic team event. The 15-year-old helped lead Russia to a gold medal in the team event after posting the highest scores in both segments to help make her the youngest figure skater to ever win an Olympic gold medal.

While Julia has become a superstar in Russia, her short program was a relative disappointment after falling on an attempted triple flip. Luckily for her, it didn't hurt her score too drastically as she's in fifth place.

For the Americans, Gracie Gold is currently in fourth, Ashley Wagner is in sixth and Polina Edmunds is in seventh. The expectations are particularly high for Wagner, as she won two consecutive gold medals at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in 2012 and 2013.

Overall, Kim is the clear favorite, but the competition will likely be fierce due to the fact that the free skate is more heavily weighted on the combined score, meaning that the gold medal is still up in the air.