Milania Väänänen and Filippo Clerici were disappointed with their skating on the EC ice.
Kaunas
Milania Väänänen and Filippo Clerici slightly improved the position of figure skating in the pair skating of the European Championships.
The Finnish-Italian couple took 14th place in the free program, but still fell far short of their level and expectations.
“Can't be satisfied. I expected much more, I'm disappointed with my skating”, Cleruci confessed honestly.
The last couple persevered to continue and into the top 16 from Wednesday's short program, which had a lot of unfortunate mistakes.
Thursday evening's free program didn't go well either, but not as badly as the short program.
One throw ended in a crash and the levels of many elements fell short. The free program produced 94.04 points. When the short program score of 48.23 is added to them, the total score was 142.27.
“Our level reaches 30 points better than now,” Clerici said.
In Zagreb in December, the pair skated their record 172.31 points.
Väänänen and Clerici have already been selected for the World Championships, which will be held in March in Montreal. The 2026 Olympic Games will be held in Italy, but Clerici will hardly have time to get Finnish citizenship before then.
“I would very much like to represent Finland in the Olympic Games as well, but first you need to know the language. I speak Italian, English and Spanish, but Finnish is difficult, although I try to learn more all the time,” said Clerici.
“Finland could get a good group in the Olympic team competition, and I could help and be involved in that.”
Väänänen takes a skating break after the European Championships and rehabilitates his back, where a possible disc bulge was found in the magnetic images.
“It's not 100% certain, but that's what has been said. My back has been bothering me since the summer, but I haven't seen a doctor about it yet. Now I have to go, because I can't do all the jumps,” said Väänänen.
However, he did not want to explain the lackluster points at the European Championships with back pain.
“No, the feeling is a little better now. I'm quite a perfectionist, and I know I can make these programs,” said Väänänen.
In the free program, Väänänen and Clerici overtook the Czech and French pair, who withdrew from the competition.
Pair skating ends late on Thursday, but Väänänen and Clerici were so far from the remaining competitors that their ranking will not improve unless the others have really bad failures.
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