Fernandez blows away opposition to join Famous Five club
ByReuters
Published 28/01/2017 at 21:21 GMT
Javier Fernandez proved he will be the man to beat at next year's Winter Olympics when even an error-filled programme could not stop him becoming the first man in more than 40 years to win five successive European figure skating titles on Saturday.
Eurosport
Image credit: Eurosport
Despite crashing heavily on his right hip following a quadruple Salchow and putting a hand down on his loop, the two-times world champion still blew away the opposition in Ostrava to win the title with a combined total of 294.84 points.
That total allowed the 25-year-old Spaniard, who had carried a lead of almost 10 points into the free skate, to beat his nearest rival, Russia's Maxim Kovtun, by a whopping 28.04 points.
Fellow Russian Mikhail Kolyada claimed the bronze with 250.18.
Fernandez became only the third man to join the 'famous five' club at the European championships. Austria's Karl Schaefer achieved the feat in the 1930s while Czechoslovakia's Ondrej Nepela won the last of his five titles in 1973.
In other competitions, Russian teenager Evgenia Medvedeva won her second successive women's title, while French ice dancers Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron edged out Italians Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte to complete a hat-trick of European wins.
Earlier in the week Germany's Aliona Savchenko, who had won four European and five world titles with the now-retired Robin Szolkowy, had to settle for her second successive pairs silver with new partner Bruno Massot.
Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov earned Russia their sixth pairs gold in a row.
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