With a performance of haunting beauty, Ukrainian ice dance couple Alexandra Nazarova and Maxim Nikitin moved audiences to tears at the World Figure Skating Championships in Montpellier.

For minutes, the spectators rose from their seats and applauded while the two athletes fought for their composure on the ice surface in their makeshift attire.

Evi Simeoni

sports editor.

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Even that told a lot about the great flight movement in their homeland due to the cruel rage of the Russian army against the civilian population.

The two had to leave their costumes at home in Kharkiv.

Anyway, they felt it wasn't the time for glamor and sequins for them.

Dressed in black trousers and plain T-shirts - he yellow, she blue - they presented their rhythm dance with an expression and virtuosity that came from deep within.

“We saw the tanks and heard the shots.

My house has no more windows," Nasarova told international media after her performance.

It was only with luck that she was able to get her skates at all.

She had left Kharkiv earlier than her dance partner, who brought her the most important equipment.

It had taken both of them days to make their way to Poland.

From there they flew to France with the help of the Polish figure skating community.

"I needed eight days for 600 kilometers," reported Nazarova.

But both really wanted to get to Montpellier and perform there, even if they hadn't been able to train for days.

"It was my dream.

It's so important for us to tell the whole world what's happening in Ukraine right now," she said.

And Nikitin added: "This performance was not only for us, but for the whole Ukrainian people.

For all the people who are still there and not safe.” They wanted to make it clear to the world what was really happening in their homeland.

"Because we saw it.

We saw what they do, how they do it, it's disgusting.” The couple's families are still in Ukraine.

Russian and Belarusian figure skaters were not admitted to the title fights.

In no time the two had changed the music to their rhythm dance.

On Friday they ran to the tune of the song "1944", with which the Ukrainian singer Jamala won the Eurovision Song Contest in Stockholm in 2016.

It is about the deportation of the Crimean Tatars by Joseph Stalin's troops, laments the victims' lost childhoods and the atrocities committed by the Soviets.

They also danced to a folk song sung by a Ukrainian artist who has since joined the army.

Although they qualified, the pair did not compete in Saturday's free program because they did not have time to change their program.

Both also looked after the 20-year-old runner Ivan Schmuratko from Kyiv, who had also fought his way to the World Cup in a roundabout way.

In the short program he also ran in a simple blue T-shirt, supplemented by a blue and yellow heart, and narrowly qualified for the freestyle.

In the end he finished last, but that was beside the point.

"It wasn't difficult to walk today," he said.

"It's hard to get news that a friend or family member has been murdered or is dead.

Or you won't find him."