FIGURE SKATING: Georgia's Metelkina, Berulava win European pairs gold

SHEFFIELD, England – Georgia’s Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava claimed their first European Figure Skating title on Thursday with a commanding performance, setting the stage for one of the most competitive events at the upcoming Olympics.

The two-time world junior champions rose to the occasion as Germany’s reigning champions, Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin, faltered. Metelkina and Berulava scored 139.80 points for the program and 215.76 overall to secure the gold medal.

Hase’s two costly falls opened the door for the Georgian pair, who skated last, to take the top spot on the podium.

“We are just crazy happy to have won the European Championships,” Berulava said. “Already, we’ve had a silver, we’ve had a bronze, and now we finally got the gold medal. We are just so thrilled.”

Germany finished second with 203.87 points, while Maria Pavlova and Alexei Sviatchenko of Hungary took bronze with 202.56 points. Hase fell on the throw triple loop and again on a lift, the final element of their program.

“The fall on the throw took out a little bit of the flow of the program,” Hase said. “And at the end, the energy wasn’t there anymore, which led to the mistake on the lift. It will not happen again, I’m pretty sure about that.”

The competition at Utilita Arena is the final international event for Europe’s Olympic-bound skaters ahead of the Milano Cortina Games, where several pairs could contend for gold.

“That will be very interesting,” Berulava said. “Right now in pair skating, there is no clear leader. The top six teams are all ready to compete for gold, silver, or bronze. Every athlete has the same goal: to win at the Olympic Games.”

Earlier in the day, Georgia’s Nika Egadze delivered a dazzling short program in the men’s singles, landing two clean quadruple jumps to take the lead. The 23-year-old opened with a quad Salchow-triple toe loop combination and followed with a quad toe loop, finishing with a score of 91.28 points ahead of Saturday’s free skate.

“I’m so happy for this. After today’s short program practice, I was nervous because practice was so bad,” Egadze said. “I practiced spins so much after Skate Canada, but today, when I tried a spin, I didn’t catch my leg.”

Egadze is coached by Eteri Tutberidze, who also coached Kamila Valieva, the Russian skater involved in the 2022 Beijing Olympics doping scandal.

Estonia’s Aleksandr Selevko sits second with 88.71 points, followed by his younger brother Mihhail at 88.28. Italy’s Matteo Rizzo placed fourth with 88.00 points, continuing his battle with Nikolaj Memola for Italy’s second Olympic spot, while Daniel Grassl, in fifth place with 84.82, has already secured the first spot.

“I hope I was able to share my emotion with the crowd because I was really under pressure today,” Rizzo said. “You have no idea how much I practiced. We worked a lot at home to skate clean.”

Memola, struggling with injuries, ranked 10th in the short program with 77.77 points.

France’s Kevin Aymoz had a disappointing day, crashing on two jumps and stumbling on a step sequence, leaving him in 27th place.

—Reporting by Lori Ewing; Editing by Ken Ferris and Christian Radnedge/Reuters