France’s wait for the European champion in men’s figure skating has come to an end. Adam Siao Him Fa ended a 12-year drought in his country on Friday (January 27) by winning gold 2023 ISU European Championships in Espoo, Finland.
Siao Him Fa, who will turn 22 next Tuesday, is the first Frenchman since then Florent Amodio in 2011 to win the continental crown.
The 21-year-old from Nice took a 10-point lead from the short program in Friday’s free skate and made the most of his advantage after the Italians’ performance Matteo Rizzo placed a strong sign right in front of him.
Siao Him Fa’s skates were not clean as they fell off the quadruple salchow and fell on the next quadruple toe loop. However, he skated the rest of his program, including an eye-catching quad toe-double toe combination, scoring 171.24 in the free skate for a total of 267.77 points.
“I’m really proud of tonight, I can’t believe it right now, but I feel great,” the Frenchman told the rink after his skate, before adding that he heard the crowd’s reaction to Rizzo’s skate, but “I was trying to focus on myself and stay in my bubble.”
Rizzo won the small gold medal in the free skating segment, defeating Siao Him Fa with a season best score of 173.46. The Italian was very impressive and didn’t let a mistake in his opening toe disrupt the rest of his routine.
Ice skating to Bruno Mars Talk to the moonRizzo nailed the rest of his jump passes, most notably a very impressive triple Axel and double Axel sequence.
At the end of his program, the 24-year-old let out a roar of emotion on the ice before bursting into tears, in disbelief at returning to the European podium for the first time since winning bronze in 2019.
His combined score is 259.92, nearly 12 points ahead of the surprise bronze medalist Lukasz Britschgi Switzerland.
The Swiss had the only clean record in the final skating group, earning positive marks for completing all 12 items in the program.
It was enough for an unexpected medal as he saw both France Kevin Aymoz and Latvia Denis Vasilievs – ahead of him after the short program – make slightly unforced errors in their routines.
Aymoz came out of the triple Axel, losing his combo – the double toe he added to it was flagged as an invalid piece – while Vasiljevs saw his opening quad Salchow attempt downgraded and his choreographed sequence got no score .
Daniel Grassel he finished sixth after his own error-riddled free skate.
Previously, medalists of the Italian Grand Prix final Sara Conti and Niccolò Macia he won gold in the pairs with a new personal best of 195.13 ahead of his teammates Rebecca Ghilardi and Filippo Ambrosini.
