Gold secures bronze at Winter Olympics

On the first day of competition, his jubilation at finishing third in the 1,500m heats and reaching the final was short lived after he was disqualified for illegally pushing ahead of a rival.

He repeated the offence after finishing second in the 1,000m heats only for the judges to again disqualify him for pushing an opponent. There is still hope for Bykanov who is yet to compete in the 500m.

Israel finished eighth in the 10-team figure skating team event at the Alexei Bychenko got the Israeli team off to an impressive start on Friday finishing second in the men's short program with 88.49 points, dancing to the tune of Hava Nagila.

Paige Conners and Evgeni Krasnopolski finished ninth in the pairs short program, while Adel Tanakova and Ronald Zilberberg in the ice dance, and Aimee Buchanan in the ladies short program each finished 10th and last in their events.

Nevertheless, Bychenko's performance was enough to keep Israel in eighth place overall, ahead of host team Korea and France.