analysis
With Minerva Hase and Nikita Volodin winning gold at the World Championships, a figure skating season full of ups and downs comes to an end. ARD commentator Daniel Weiss looks back and ahead.
Minerva Hase and Nikita Volodin provided the highlight of an exciting figure skating season in Prague. The German couple rewarded themselves with gold at the World Cup. Despite the brilliant conclusion, the two have faced ups and downs in the past few months. The former figure skater and current ARD commentator Daniel Weiss followed the two closely.
“So far their development has always been linear”said Weiss in an interview with Sportschau, “With both of them everything was always peace, joy, pancakes.” Now Hase and Voldin were confronted with “wave movements” for the first time, says Weiss – once Hase made a mistake, then Volodin made a mistake. At the Olympic Games in Milan, the pair was in the lead after the short program. In the freestyle, however, they had some insecurities.
When Rabbit tore open the salchow, gold was gone. And at the gold performance in Prague, Hase/Volodin also had a brief tremor, but otherwise put on a fantastic performance. was gold “highly deserved“, says Weiss. The Berliners had to respond to the pressure that had built up around the Olympics and, as Weiss says, “broken in to the bone” was, withstood.
“They are Germany’s new dream couple”
But Hase/Volodin has grown from the ups and downs: “They never let themselves get irritated, that’s the greatest strength an athlete can have.” Weiss finds: “They are Germany’s new dream couple.” Weiss hopes that Rabbit and Voldin will continue. The two have recently left their sporting future open. Even in Prague they didn’t answer the question.
But Weiss’ joy goes not only to the gold couple, but also to the World Cup seventh-place finishers Annika Hocke and Robert Kunkel. It was good for both of them that they were on “Holiday on Ice” – “There they learned about the beauty of our sport, which is not always just about points, but also about entertainment.”
Squatting/Kunkel fighting from heavy Training accident back
Hocke and Kunkel danced to Meat Loaf’s “I’d Do Anything for Love” in Prague. The “Headbanger” at the end of the performance will be remembered – a routine that thrilled Weiss: “They did an excellent job. They can be very proud of themselves.” The fact that Hocke/Kunkel were able to put on such a performance on the ice was nothing short of a miracle. Kunkel suffered serious hand injuries in a training accident in the summer, says Weiss.
The accident completely threw the preparations into disarray – just a few months before the Olympic Games. But the Berliners picked themselves up and were able to work their way up in the rankings at the Winter Games after a flawless performance in the free skate. In the end there was tenth place.
Hopes rest on Genrikh Gartung
Weiss is also looking forward to Genrikh Gartung in the coming season. “He is extremely talented”says the figure skating expert. The 18-year-old is the only man in Germany to succeed in quadruple jumps. He recently narrowly reached the final at the European Championships and also at the World Cup. But gardening still needs to be done “It should be approached artistically, it’s currently still very simple and material.”
“Less rosy” However, it looks like this with women. Of all things, in the area in which Germany once celebrated great successes thanks to Katharina Witt and Claudia Leistner, it is current “right at the front and on the big international stage, nothing in sight”.
Is Alysa Liu also getting more Germans interested in figure skating?
Weiss’ hopes lie with Alysa Liu. The American won gold at the Olympic Games and particularly inspired the younger generation. Videos of her performances went viral; the shooting star now has eight million followers on Instagram. Her look – from the unusual hair color to the piercings – is well received by GenZ. Liu graces the covers of major fashion magazines, is invited to red carpets and celebrated on TikTok.
Weiss is happy “that the sport of figure skating has found an incredibly young audience after the Olympic Games”. Over the past 20 years he has feared “That figure skating is a very nice niche sport that hardly finds a young audience because certain aspects were too unfashionable, not cool enough.” But now the whole thing has been “reversed” – especially by Liu and the men’s star, Ilia Malinin. “They have incredible star status, a huge fan base.”
The hype is also noticeable in Germany. Weiss says: “I’ve been approached by a lot of young people saying that they got into figure skating through the Olympics because they follow Malinin and Liu on TikTok and Instagram.” Weiss hopes that this enthusiasm will soon be felt on the ice.
