Ninth in the 2021 Worlds last March and the only Frenchman entered in the category, Aymoz (24) ranked tenth in the short program, with 80.39 points, after a performance penalized by two faulty quadruple jumps: he finished the first with both hands on the ice, then his rough landing on the second prevented him from posting a generous points combination.

Before the free program scheduled for Friday evening, he is nearly twenty points behind the head, occupied by the young Russian Andrei Mozalev (18) who obtained 99.76 points.

He beat his compatriots Mark Kondratiuk (99.06) and Evgeni Semenenko (99.04), also 18 years old.

All three managed two "quad".

Russian Andrei Mozalev, during the short program of the European Figure Skating Championships, January 12, 2022 in Tallinn Daniel MIHAILESCU AFP

"I'm already going to skate the free skate, it's pretty cool," smiles Aymoz, referring to his nightmarish experience two years ago in Graz (Austria), when he was a legitimate contender for European gold. collapsed and had been eliminated from the short program (26th).

The Isère skater nevertheless admitted "a little sad" because "in training, since the start of the week, it was + clean, clean, clean +, everything was almost perfect".

But "I was very stressed," he admits.

"The past was chasing me"

"It was very hard, all the past was chasing me, my season is complicated too, explains Aymoz. It is only my second real competition of the season, it is still hard, it is only the beginning for me."

The French Kevin Aymoz, during the short program of the European Figure Skating Championships, January 12, 2022 in Tallinn Daniel MIHAILESCU AFP

This is because the French skater remains over two particularly complicated years, deprived for a year and a half of his training base in Florida by the pandemic - he was only able to join it in October - and at a standstill. the summer because of a pubalgia.

He also suffered from a right big toe in November.

“A lot of things have turned me upside down over the past two years,” he says. tardily".

Work "two weeks by two weeks between competitions, it does not make up for months of training."

"We are gradually rebuilding what I had built in 2019", when he finished at the foot of the European podium in January, then on that of the prestigious Grand Prix final in December (3rd), behind the two star skaters of the moment, Nathan Chen and Yuzuru Hanyu.

His goal on Friday?

"Skate + clean +, answers Aymoz. I want to do well, to get everything out at the right time."

Hoping to catch up, to get on the European podium for the first time in his career, however, promises to be very delicate.

The 2020 European champion, Russian Dmitri Aliev, is absent.

The competition continues into the evening with the short couples program.

In 2021, the continental meeting had been canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

© 2022 AFP