Vasiliev — ninth, Kulish — 15th at the European Figure Skating Championships

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Latvian athletes Denis Vasiliev and Fedir Kulish finished respectively ninth and 15th at the European Figure Skating Championships in Sheffield on Saturday, LETA reports.

The champion was Nika Egadze from Georgia, who was unmatched in both the short program on Thursday and the free skate on Saturday. In total, the Georgian figure skater scored 273 points and at the age of 23 won the most significant award of his career.

Italian Matteo Rizzo was fourth after the short program but achieved the second-best result in the free skate, moving up to second place with 256.37 points. Czech representative Georgiy Reshtenko was eighth after the short program; however, his third result in the free skate allowed him to score 238.27 points and take third place in the overall standings.

The brothers Alexander and Mikhail Selevko from Estonia had an unsuccessful performance. After the short program, they were in prize positions — second and third, respectively — but on Saturday they only showed the tenth and eleventh results, which pushed them to the bottom of the top six.

Vasiliev scored 149.71 points in the free skate — the eighth-best result of the day — and his total of 227.51 points secured him ninth place. Kulish received 132.70 points for the free skate and moved up one position in the overall standings — with 201.22 points, he finished in 15th place.

On Thursday, Vasiliev scored 77.80 points for the short program and was in ninth place. Kulish, whose higher score was hindered by a small fall, received 68.52 points and was in 16th place among 29 participants. A total of 24 athletes qualified for the free skate.

In 2022, before the Olympic Games in Beijing, Vasiliev won a bronze medal — the only award for Latvia at the European Championships. In subsequent championships, he placed fifth and then sixth twice.

For Vasiliev, this was already his tenth participation in the European Championships, while for Ukrainian-born Kulish, it was his third. In 2024, he was 29th, and the year before — 14th. This year, he competed for the first time as a citizen of Latvia.

The European Championships in Sheffield will conclude on Saturday. In the women's competition, Nikola Fomchenkova participated, finishing in 37th place.