Ed Appleby and Elena Komova both skated season's best performances as they made their European Youth Olympics debuts today.
Appleby, who was Team GB flagbearer at the opening ceremony, scored 68.58 in the men's Short Program, placing him third in the standings going into tomorrow’s Free Skate. He is just just 1.97 points behind Estonian skater Arlet Levand, and showed promising signs throughout with the highest technical score of the entire field (37.94).
Komova scored 44.25 and is nicely placed in 12th position going into tomorrow's finale.
Essex-born Appleby said he was thrilled by his performance. Speaking to Team GB after his skate he said: "I feel like it’s definitely shown the hard work that I’ve put into the routine. I executed the jumps really well, I felt like I got all the rotation I could on them - I hope that I can replicate it tomorrow.
“The hope now is to not get carried away with placings, keep my head cool, relax and do what I know I can do.
“So for the past just over a month, we’ve been doing program run-throughs almost every day. And because of my college commitments, I’ve been having to do these at 6-7 in the morning, which can get quite tiring. It does make it feel a lot easier when you have to compete at a lunch-time.
“The music is a lot of fun, because for a short program you have the energy to use up throughout. I believe that it was recommended to us by Robin Cousins, who is obviously a massive role model for anyone in figure skating. To have that is a big chunk of motivation, definitely.
“I’m happy with most of it – I had one little slip up where I was meant to do a camel spin, but because I slipped, I felt like I didn’t have enough speed to do it successfully. I changed that for the combination spin which I felt had a better chance to gain speed throughout. I’m happy with the decision that I made – I felt like it paid off at the end.”
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