Figure skating: pair skaters Hocke/Kunkel get bronze

The Berlin pair skaters Annika Hocke and Robert Kunkel won the bronze medal at the Grand Prix of figure skating in Angers, western France.

The duo improved significantly in the freestyle after finishing fifth in the short program on Friday. Although Hocke and Kunkel were not without mistakes, some competitors made more mistakes.

Canadians Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps defended their lead and won ahead of French duo Camille and Pavel Kovalev. In the remaining three disciplines there are no Germans at the start.

“We only had a week of preparation because we were ill beforehand,” said Hocke: “That’s why we’re very satisfied with our performance. At least there’s one constant compared to the last competitions. We were motivated from the start and will now be one Practice in peace for the week to perform even better at our second Grand Prix in two weeks in Japan.”

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