The French Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, who have been weakened by their first two losses in two years, reaffirmed their European supremacy by capturing a third consecutive crown in ice dance on Saturday in Ostrava (Czech Republic).
Two months from the Helsinki World Championships (29 March-2 April) and one year from the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang (South Korea), it is an important success for young dancers on ice - Papadakis is 21 , Cizeron 22 - all smiles since their explosion at the highest level from their second senior season in the winter of 2014/2015, but suddenly become less sovereign this autumn.
The two French, double world champions in title, remained on two defeats one after the other at the end of 2016, in Grand Prix, Japan and then in Marseille in the final. Their first setbacks since December 2014. Each time in front of their training partners in Montreal, Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, 2010 Olympic champions and 2014 Olympic champions, back to competition this winter after a break of two years.
"With the start of the season which put them in a position of weakness, which made them a little more attackable, they very well reacted," welcomed their coach, Romain Haguenauer.
The French Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron during the free dance program at the Euro of figure skating, January 28, 2017 in Ostrava / AFP
"It's a relief because that's what we wanted ... It's especially relief, not to have won the title, but to have skated well, to have done what" We know how to do, "said Papadakis.
Because "there was a lot of tension after the + short + (short program)," she acknowledged.
A mistake by Papadakis in a sequence of footsteps, which echoed the one made in Marseille at the beginning of December by Cizeron, pushed them back to third place on Thursday. Behind the Russians Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev, and the Italians Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte.
Aerial dress and blue suit, the French are the last to be entered on the ice of Ostrava Saturday. They skated a successful free program, on contemporary music, which brought them, with a total of 189.67 points, ahead of the Italians (186.64) and the Russians (186.56).
"The performance was excellent, limpid, it was technically perfect," said Haguenauer.
With a resolutely modern and audacious program, far from the often classical artistic proposals of the discipline, Papadakis and Cizeron continue to claim their trademark. And to shake the dance on ice by bringing it to new horizons.
This is part of their success, but is not always well received. Illustration in a press conference when the French were questioned by a German journalist about their musical choice, having, according to him, "nothing to do with what must be a music for the dance on ice".
"What do you call good music for dancing on ice?" Asked Papadakis.
"What we are trying to do is show people what the dance on ice should or could be. I think there is no limit to what can be done in dance on Ice, "replied Cizeron.
For the time being, it suits them. Papadakis and Cizeron became the first French dancers triple European champions. Nathalie Péchalat and Fabian Bourzat (2011, 2012) and Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat (2000, 2002) had been crowned twice.
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