Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin received a gold medal for their excellent performance in the free dance.
Photo: AP
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Russian Skaters Win Gold, Bronze
Skaters Oksana Domnina and Maxin Shabalin received the gold medal and Jana Khokhlova and Sergey Novitsky received the bronze in the ice dancing competition at the Championship of Europe in Zagreb, bringing the number of Russian medals to four. Both Russian pairs were exceptionally well prepared, and an outcry was raised when Khokhlova and Novitsky scored below last year's European champions the French pair Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder.
Khokhlova and Novitsky performed a dance conceived by their trainers Alexander Svinin and Irina Zhuk, although choreographer Tatyana Stepanova, who has worked with Lyudmila Pakhomova, Natalia Linichuk and Natalia Dubova, also helped them prepare. Svinin and Zhuk asked the International Skating Union to change the rules to allow the pair to perform more freely, but their request was refused.
Domnina and Shabalin had placed behind Delobel and Schoenfelder twice in the championship before winning the gold. Shabalin noted that he has yet to completely recover from his recent knee operation.
Ksenia Doronina placed ninth in the women's singles. Doronina did not participate in the championship at all last year, so her trainer, Anna Pyatova, whom she joined last year after leaving Alexey Mishin's group, considers her placing a great success. The other Russian in that category, Nina Petushkova, placed 17th. Therefore, Doronina will be the lone Russian women's single skating at the Gothenburg championship. Italian Carlolina Kostner was the champion in singles at Zagreb.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Jan. 28, 2008
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