The German figure skaters Minerva-Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin are reaching for the gold medal at the World Championships in Prague.
Five weeks after winning pair skating bronze at the Winter Olympics in Milan, the Berliners ran a world-class short program and with 79.78 points are just ahead of the Olympic silver medalists Anastassia Metelkina/Luka Berulawa from Georgia (79.45 points). The decision will be made in the freestyle on Thursday (6.15 p.m./Eurosport and sportstudio.de).
Lia Pereira/Trennt Michaud from Canada secured third place in the atmospheric O2 Arena (75.52). The Japanese Olympic champions and world champions Miura Riku/Kihara Ryichi had canceled their start in advance.
This is also why Hase/Volodin, as runners-up at the World Championships last year, were the last couple to take to the ice in Boston. In the last competition of the season, the figureheads of the German Ice Skating Union (DEU) showed no nerves during their tango. They had already been in the lead at halftime in Milan, but then made a mistake in the free skate.
The second Berlin duo Annika Hocke/Robert Kunkel came in tenth (65.35), a fall by Hocke during the triple Salchow prevented a better result for the former European Championship third placers. “A very annoying mistake. We are now missing four points and you can see what would have been possible for us,” said Hocke. “As soon as I jumped off, I felt that it couldn’t go well.”
In ice dancing, Jennifer Janse van Rensburg/Benjamin Steffan want to forget the Olympic disappointment from Friday and move into the freestyle final this time. In the men’s competition, which took place in Milan without Germans, the German champion Genrikh Gartung represents the DEU team. The 18-year-old quadruple jumper will be the youngest participant at his World Championships debut on Thursday afternoon.
