They said he should play soccer. They said figure skating was for girls. They said winter sports made no sense in temperate Guadalajara.

But none of those naysayers deterred Mexican figure skater Donovan Carrillo, the rare Latin American athlete at the Winter Games, who has now become an even more rare Beijing Olympics success story – however relative – from that part of the globe.

Carrillo had a career-best performance in the marquee sport of the Winter Games on Tuesday at Capital Indoor Stadium, featuring a well-executed quad toe loop and difficult triple axel.