STACEY Kemp and David King suffered further heartache in the Winter Olympics as Kemp fell for a second time in the competition.

Chorley's Kemp had hit the ice in the team event last week and she once again fell as the duo got their pairs competition underway with the short prorgamm on Tuesday afternoon.

The pair scored 44.98 in Sochi meaning a top 16 finish and a place in the medal round on Wednesday looks beyond them.

Former GB figure skating star Robin Cousins said of the routine: "I could see the tension in Stacey right from the very beginning. It was not the best performance."

Kemp had recovered from a cruciate ligament injury to compete in Sochi.

The 25-year-old and her partner King, who both went to Blackburn College and trained at Blackburn Arena.

After the skate, King said: “It’s a shame because you always want to skate the free programme.”

However, he insisted that the pairs performance was better than last week - when they got 44.70 after a point deduction - and that the judges had been unduly harsh.

”It was only one mistake but it seemed to cost us a lot of marks for some reason,” he said.

”Our levels were loads better. I don’t know why we got such big deductions, the lift was better, the twist was better, the axel was better, everything was better.

”It was just that Stacey went down on the throw, she just went a bit to the left side, and it seemed to cost us a lot of points.

”You’re on a knife edge and it just didn’t go. It’s part of our sport, you have to take as it comes.

”It’s a shame because it was a lot better than last week and we got a similar score which was tough.

”I felt if we had done the throw we would have been quite safe tonight but it’s just one of those things.”

Chorley's Kemp fell towards the end of her routine as Great Britain were eliminated from the team competition at the first hurdle on Thursday.

Kemp and King were 16th at the Vancouver Games four years ago.