The new German dream couple Minerva Hase and Nikita Wolodin immediately won bronze on their debut at the World Figure Skating Championships in Montreal. Deanna Stellato Dudek and Maxime Deschamps from Canada won the title. At 40, Stellato Dudek is the oldest woman to ever win a world figure skating title.
“I can hardly believe it – we won a medal at our first World Cup, in our first season. We have invested so many years in the sport to be able to achieve something here,” said 24-year-old Berliner Minerva Hase . Her partner Volodin announced: “We would like to be first, soon. I’m already thinking about what we have to work on.”
After the short program, Hase/Wolodin were in a promising fourth place, just behind the Italians Sara Conti/Niccolo Macii. The Berliners got off to a first-class start in their emotional freestyle to “The Path of Silence” and “The Power of Mind” with a triple twist and a combination of triple toe loop and two double axels.
Shocking moment
Then came the moment of shock – Rabbit fell to the ground during the triple Salchow, which she had actually already done. But after that the national champions didn’t allow me to make any further mistakes. “I slipped, it was a tiny bit of inattention,” Minerva Rabbit said of the fall. But when the Italians made several mistakes, Hase/Volodin’s medal dream came true.
Annika Hocke/Robert Kunkel also achieved a top result with fifth place. The Berlin couple returned to the top of the world and delivered a clean routine. “This means a lot to us. In the last few weeks we have noticed that we are on the right track and have found a lot of self-confidence in ourselves,” said Hocke.
Stellato Dudek/Deschamps impressed in their vampire freestyle and won the first pair skating world title for Canada since 2016. Silver went to the defending champions Riku Miura/Ryuichi Kihara from Japan. Since Kihara hyperventilated after the free skate and had to be treated medically, the duo was missing from the award ceremony.
For the German Ice Skating Union, there is splendor in pair skating, but sadness in singles. After Kristina Isaev in the women’s race, Nikita Starostin also retired in the men’s short program after a mistake in the axel in 32nd place. World champion Shoma Uno from Japan leads.
