Montpellier (dpa) – The pair skaters Minerva Fabienne Haase / Nolan Seegert have achieved the greatest success of their careers with fifth place at the figure skating world championships in Montpellier.
After their disappointment at the Olympic Games, the Berliners showed their skills in the Sud de France Arena and, apart from a small stumble in the three-time throwing jumper, came through their freestyle without any mistakes and scored a total of 189.61 points, a new personal best.
Alexa Knierim/Brandon Frazier won the first pairs gold for the USA since 1979 with 221.09 points ahead of the Japanese Riku Miura/Ryuichi Kihara (199.55) and Vanessa James/Eric Radford from Canada (197.32). The competition was overshadowed by an accident when the Americans Ashley Cain-Gribble/Timothy Leduc, who were second in the short program, had to retire after Cain-Gribble fell badly.
“After the Olympic Games and the European Championship it was difficult to get back into training, there was a lot of stress in training and the pressure that we could finally deliver,” said Hase. Fifth place is “a very nice end to the season for us”.
In the afternoon, World Championship debutant Nikita Starostin reached the final despite a fall in the triple axel. The 19-year-old did well in the rest of his short program and finished 23rd with 73.79 points. In the absence of the injured Olympic champion Nathan Chen (USA), Olympic bronze medalist Shoma Uno from Japan finished ahead of his with 109.63 points Compatriot Yuma Kagiyama (105.69) in the lead.