Sinitsina and Katsalapov win European ice dance title
GRAZ, Austria (AP) — Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov won the ice dance title at the European figure skating championships on Saturday, ending a run of five titles for France’s Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron.
Sinitsina and Katsalapov scored 220.42 points to beat Papadakis and Cizeron by 0.14 despite having started Saturday’s free dance in second place.
That made them the first dancers to beat the French duo since Canada’s Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir took the gold medal at the Winter Olympics in 2018.
Russia is on target to win the gold medals in all four events at the championships after earlier winning men’s and pairs gold. Russian skaters are in the top three places after the short program in the women’s event, the only competition still to be decided.
The ice dance bronze went to another Russian duo, Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin, on 211.29. They had been fourth after the rhythm dance but overtook Italians Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri in Saturday’s free dance.
