Olympics-Figure Skating-Germany's Fabienne Hase says bronze with Volodin "doesn't suck at all"

MILAN – The color of an Olympic medal doesn’t matter, according to Minerva Fabienne Hase, who, together with partner Nikita Volodin, secured bronze in the pairs competition on Monday, putting Germany back on the figure skating podium for the first time in eight years.

Fabienne Hase and Volodin led Sunday’s short program with 80.01 points, delivering a clean performance that capitalized on mistakes from their rivals.

Their combined total of 219.09, however, was short of Japanese champions Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara, who won gold with 231.24 points after recovering from a disappointing short program with an impressive free skate. Georgia’s Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava took silver with 221.75 points.

“It doesn’t suck at all, to be honest. It’s a medal at the Olympics. I think it doesn’t matter which color,” Fabienne Hase told reporters.

“We can bring home a bronze medal from our first Olympics together. That’s pretty amazing. A lot of people said we should get gold, but I think we’re just as proud to bring home bronze for figure skating,” added the 26-year-old.

The 2025 World silver medalists have been skating together since 2022. St. Petersburg-born Volodin, who previously represented Russia, was able to compete after receiving German citizenship last year. The change revived his career, which had stalled in Russia.

Fabienne Hase had previously competed with Nolan Seegert at the Beijing Olympics but was forced to withdraw from the team event after Seegert tested positive for COVID-19. She trained alone for 10 days before eventually finishing 16th in the pairs competition.

German figure skaters have struggled in recent years, with Hase and Volodin emerging as the country’s only medal contenders in Milan. Germany’s last Olympic figure skating medal came in 2018, when Aljona Savchenko and Bruno Massot won gold in Pyeongchang.

“The arena was loud, with tons of German flags and fans in the stands; we hadn’t expected anything like this. It was something huge,” Hase said.

“I’m still incredibly happy that we were able to give all the spectators who came especially for us this moment on the podium and celebrate together in this beautiful arena.”

-Reporting by Valentina Za; Editing by Pritha Sarkar/Reuters