WSSA European Freestyle Skating

Championships 2013

Classic Freestyle

The 5th European Freestyle Skating Championships started on friday, July 12th, with Freestyle Classic, men and women.

In the Men category, all the Europeans of the world top 20 showed up, except M.Sloboda (#7, Ger) and the competition was the highest level ever.
Out of the 11 countries represented in this category, the russians were the most represented, with 11 skaters, then, the italians with 9 skaters, then the frenchs and polishs with 7 skaters, and the spanishs with 5 skaters.

The first good surprise went from the Timchenko brothers, Alexandr (#26) and Sergei (#48) , who improve their level after each event. Sergei, the younger one, took a final 6th place, very good result for him, he could place in his run very good tricks, like back Tofu (Toe Footgun), shifts, but is missing a finition of the trick that he will certainly improve in the next years, gaining experience.

Alexandr Timchenko, finished on the podium with a bronze medal ; he performed a nice run, finishing all his tricks, Tofus, fakes, and nice wheeling combos, his run was well balanced between the different tricks families and matched the music quite well. A.Timchenko got the same number of placing points than Jon Larrucea (#8, Esp), but 3 judges out of 5 put him in front of Larrucea, who was better in the musical coordination, but lower in the tricks' difficulty.

Michal Sulinowski (#2 Pol) had great chances this year to get the european title, as he already won in Korea, and was the best european skater in Paris. But this time Romain Lebois (#1 Fra) came with a brand new run, much better studied than the previous ones, including massive tricks like a Toe Christie, or very difficult wheeling combos, well executed and in his flow. The 5 judges placed unanimously R.Lebois at the first place, letting him keep the european title he already won last year in the Classic freestyle contest.

In the Women competition, the level was the highest ever as well in an European championship, as 12 from the 14 best Europeans of the world ranking came to win the title. The favorites for the titles prepared very well and we find at the 5th place, the french Zoé Granjon (#4), who performed very difficult tricks, like back Tofu, wheeling combos, but as well as few mistakes in her run, and her lack of expression combined with the music were not enough to place her on the podium. She is improving in Classic, and she is starting to be a threat for the favorites, but she will need to work on the construction of her run to have chances to reach the podium in the biggest competitions.

At the 4th place, Maryna Boiko (UKR, #3), did a very good run, with very high difficulty tricks, well combined with the music but kicking few cones, and not so fast as Klaudia Hartmanis (Pol, #2), who performed super fast combinations, well balanced with the music. Even if she did some small mistakes, all the judges placed K.Hartmanis in front of M.Boiko at the final third place.

The 2 first girls were very close, both from Russia, they showed a quite similar run, in the construction, and in the tricks performed, front and back Tofus, wheeling combos, back external heel sevens, … Olga Semenikhina (#7) passed a toe Christie, but did some mistakes in the finishing of the tricks, while Daria Kuznetsova (#1) passed good tricks combinations, heel and toe sevens, wheeling combos, with a good speed and even if she didn't do a perfect run, with some mistakes, the 5 judges placed her unanimously at the first place.

With this victory, D.Kuznetsova, keeps her european title won last year and became the first woman to get 3 european titles, in front of Polina Semenova (RUS, 2 titles) and Chloé Seyres (FRA, 2 titles).

Top 5 Classic Freestyle Slalom :

WOMEN

MEN

The full results are available here.

EFSC SPEED SLALOM REPORT HERE