The German pair skaters Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nolan Seegert achieved the best result of their careers at the World Figure Skating Championships in Montpellier, France. The two Berliners came fifth after the freestyle on Thursday (March 24th, 2022).
World title in the USA
New world champions and first time WM-Titleholders are the U.S-American Alexa Knierim/Brandon Frazier. In the absence of the Russian titleholders Anastasiya Mishina and Aleksander Galljamov as well as the Chinese Olympic champions Wenjing Sui and Cong Han, the won WM-Sixth Knierim/Frazier in 221.09 points in front of Riku Miura/Ryichi Kihara from Japan (199.55 points) and the Canadians Vanessa James/Eric Radford (197.32 points)
Olympic top 5 are absent WM
Overall, the top 5 of the Winter Olympics were missing. The three Russian pairs skating teams were banned because of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. The two Chinese couples had to go into three-week quarantine after the Olympics and were unable to train during this time.
First US pairs gold since 1979
So Knierim/Frazier celebrated their first WM-Gold – plus the first pairs skating title since Tai Babilonia/Randy Gardner in 1979. Miura/Kihara and James/Radford also skated to their firsts WM-Medals.
Hase/Seegert: A conciliatory conclusion
The German duo Hase/Seegert was only 5.39 points behind the bronze medal after the short program. However, the German champions missed the sensational medal due to mistakes in the Rittberger and the triple Salchow. Nevertheless, the duo showed an atmospheric performance with many successful elements. The triple twist at the beginning was just as clean as the following triple-doubletoeloop-Combination or the throwing salchow at the very end of the program.
With 189.61 points, Hase/Seegert were able to set a new personal best and with WM-Fifth place happy about the best result of her career. After the drama in Beijing, when Seegert had to be in quarantine for days because of a positive corona test and both only finished 16th, the two also managed to end the season on a positive note.
“Beautiful season finale”
“It was a wonderful season finale that means a lot to us”said Hase after the competition. Seegert added: “Our condition work paid off, we ran better than in training.” With their top 10 placement, 22-year-old Hase and 29-year-old Seegert secured the German Skating Union at the upcoming WM 2023 two starting places.
Second-placed Cain-Gribble crashes badly
The freestyle on Thursday evening was overshadowed by a serious fall of the previously runner-up U.S-American Ashley Cain-Gribble. The 26-year-old fell on her head after failing to jump and initially remained dazed on the ice. She was later carried off the ice on a stretcher. Nothing was initially known about her state of health.
Source: Dirk Hofmeister (with sid)