The competition at the 2007 European Figure Skating Championships concluded Saturday in Warsaw, Poland, with the Ladies Free Skating.
Ladies, Free Skating
In what was an interesting Ladies event, Carolina Kostner of Italy was crowned the new European Champion. Sarah Meier (SUI) skated to the silver medal while Finland’s Kiira Korpi earned the bronze.
Kostner, who stood in second place after yesterday’s Short Program, opened her performance to “Memories of a Geisha” with a high triple flip-triple toe-double loop combination followed by a triple Lutz-double toe and a triple loop. The 2006 European bronze medalist also produced another triple flip, a triple Salchow and double Axel. She earned a level four flying camel spin and her spiral step sequence while her other spins and steps were all graded a level three by the Technical Panel. Her only error came when she popped the second loop into a single. The 19-year-old scored 114.33 points (57.62 element score/56.71 program component score), slightly improving her previous personal best. Overall Kostner racked up 174.79 points to take the title. She is the first Italian Lady ever to become European Champion. So far Italian Ladies had won one silver and four bronze medals at this event.
Overnight leader Meier delivered a solid performance as well. Skating to the soundtrack of “Pride and Prejudice” the Grand Prix Final bronze medalist landed a triple Lutz-double toe-double loop combination, a triple flip-double toe another triple flip and a triple toe-double toe, but she stepped out of her second triple Lutz and doubled the Salchow. Her final upright spin was wobbly. The Swiss Champion collected 110.79 points (53.65/57.14) and slipped to second place at 171.28 points. Meier is the first Swiss Lady to win a medal at Europeans since Denise Biellmann was European Champion in 1981.
Korpi’s program to “Phantasia” with motives from “Phantom of the Opera” by Andrew Lloyd Webber, featured a triple Lutz-double toe-double loop combination, a triple loop-double toe and a triple Salchow-double toe as well as a level-four spiral and a level three combination spin. The 18-year-old Finn stumbled on her first double Axel, doubled loop and her second flip was underroated and downgraded. Korpi earned 97.35 points (46.79/50.56) and accumulated 151.19 points overall. She was ranked fourth in the Free Skating but nevertheless moved up from fifth to third.
“I feel awesome. I had a lot of fun skating tonight. To be honest, I know myself and I knew that I had a chance to win if I do my program. After missing a lot of time of practice (due to her injury) I didn’t have high expectations. Maybe that helped me”, Kostner told the press. When asked about her injury (she tore ligaments in September 2006), she answered: “It happened on the landing of a triple loop. It was a very bad loop. At the beginning it (practice) was difficult, but I wanted to be sure that the injury was healed before I practice again. I was back on the ice at the beginning of December. I slowly got back the moves and I started slowly with the jumps after two weeks. You have to get the feeling for the jumps, and you can do that with single or double jumps.”
Meier commented: Now I’m starting to feel happy. My free program wasn’t what I imagined it to be. It was not perfect. But the more time passes the happier I will be. My goal was to get a medal, and I got the silver.”
Korpi still seemed stunned by what had happened. “I still can’t believe it, I never would have expected this after my performance. I could have done better but I’m happy with anyway. The first jump was a double, the flip was not clean and then there was the Axel… but otherwise it was OK. I can’t believe my marks, I didn’t expect them to be so good, especially as I know what I could be capable of, there is still room for improvement. I have had a nice feeling all week, I have been enjoying the buzz.”
Susanna Pöykiö (FIN) finished fourth at 146.02 points. She completed four triple jumps, but her Lutz was downgraded. Valentina Marchei (ITA) soared from 12th to fifth with a strong Free Skating that included five triples and fast spins (144.28 points). Alisa Drei completed a successful day for the Finnish team by finishing sixth at 141.90 points with another good performance.
The ISU European Figure Skating Championships 2007 conclude tomorrow (Sunday) with the Exhibition Gala.
