At the Grand Prix final in Japan, a Japanese couple is at the top after the short program. Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin showed a rather disappointing performance.
The German hopefuls Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin left the ice rink in Nigoya (Japan) with somewhat disappointed faces. The two Germans opened the second group with the song “El Abrazo” – the hug – which was composed especially for them.
The defending champions started with a clean twist in the highest difficulty level four. Shortly afterwards, however, Minerva Hase failed at the triple salchow and only performed it once. In this strong Grand Prix final, this mistake could mean missing out on the medal places.
Fifth place after a few minor mistakes
But the two were undeterred and continued their program with a beautiful Rittberger throw. However, a few small careless mistakes ultimately only resulted in a score of 71.68. That meant fifth place in the end.
The freestyle follows on Friday (December 4th, in the stream at sportschau.de). Minerva Hase and Nikita Volodin have to achieve a flawless run here if they want to achieve one of the coveted podium places.
Top-class finale
The competition was opened by the Hungarian couple Maria Pavlova and Alexei Sviatchenko, who showed a very concentrated and flawless performance. Afterwards, the Canadian world champions Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps ran a shaky but solid program marked by small imperfections.
The first group was finished by Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava from Georgia. The two showed a flawless run that ultimately led to third place.
Japanese couple leads
Minerva Hase and Nikita Volodin were followed by the Italians Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii. With their energetic and clean flamenco they took the lead with 77.22 points and a new personal best.
But Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara from Japan were even better. They showed a flawless performance in their home country and moved just ahead of the Italians with 77.32 points.