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Nikita Volodin and Minerva Hase showed a good, but not flawless freestyle

Photo: Mark R. Cristino / EPA

The new German figure skating pair Minerva Hase/Nikita Volodin won the Grand Prix final in Beijing and celebrated their biggest success together so far. The pair scored 206.43 points after the freestyle, beating Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii of Italy (205.88) and Canada's Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps (204.30) to second and third place. It is the first German victory at a Grand Prix final since 2017, when Alyona Savchenko and Bruno Massot won gold.

"We're super happy. We came here with no expectations. To take first place now is more than we could have wished for," said Hase. We don't even understand it yet. It's hard to put into words," Volodin said.

To the music »The Path of Silence«, Hase and Volodin showed a good, but not flawless freestyle. Hase was unclean for the triple-thrower Rittberger and could only prevent a fall with his hand, and in the end the pace was lost a bit. The second-best freestyle (133.87) behind Conti/Macii (135.58) was still enough for overall success. The basis for this was the flawless short program with a season's best performance (72.56) on Thursday. In Beijing, however, some of the top duos were missing.

Rabbit and Volodin have only been running together for a year

Russian coach Dmitry Savin had brought Hase and Volodin together in October 2022. Prior to that, Hase had Nolan Seegert as her partner for seven years, with whom she finished fifth at the World Championships and European Championships and competed at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing. Volodin had previously tried it with four Russian partners without success.

Volodin is Russian and is allowed to compete in Grand Prix competitions, the European Championships in Kaunas, Lithuania, in January and the World Championships in Montreal in March. To participate in the 2026 Olympic Games in Italy, he would have to become a German citizen.

With victories at the most recent Grand Prix events in Espoo (Finland) and Osaka (Japan), Hase and Volodin had already attracted attention this season, which is one of the reasons why they were among the favourites in Beijing. The second German elite pair Annika Hocke and Robert Kunkel had also qualified for the Grand Prix Final, but had to withdraw due to injury.

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