Ostrava (Czech Republic) (AFP) – Russia’s Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov won the pairs title on Thursday at the European figure skating championships.
Tarasova and Morozov, who won bronze a year ago, won their first crown as they saw off silver medalists Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot of Germany and French couple Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres.
Earlier, Italy’s Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte danced into pole position in the ice dance with defending champions Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France trailing in provisional third.
Bidding to recapture the title they last won in 2014 the skaters from Milan opened up a lead of less than one point on Russia’s Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev after the short dance.
Two-time reigning European and world champions Papadakis and Cizeron slipped to third.
Capellini and Lanotte achieved a new personal best 76.65 points for their Blues routine “Cry For Me” and Boogie Woogie “Choo Choo Boogie”.
“We’ve been craving to give this programme a good go and waited for such a performance like this all season,” said Lanotte.
“But the competition is not over yet, it’s only half of the way. We need to not care about this.”
Bobrova and Soloviev scored 76.18 with the French close behind with 75.48.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.