Loena Hendrickx wins European championships gold to end wait

Winner Loena Hendrickx of Belgium

Loena Hendrickx’s wait for a major figure skating gold medal ended Saturday with victory at the European figure skating championships.

Hendrickx had placed second at the world and European championships but finally finished top of the podium with a high-energy program to Beyoncé and Madonna’s “Break My Soul (The Queens Remix)”. Hendrickx finished by striking a pose on the rink wall in front of the judges.

“I have no words, I’m just so happy. I worked so hard. Now all the emotion’s coming,” Hendrickx said with tears in her eyes.

“It was really hard because I had a lot of nerves going into the free program, I had a lot of pressure but I tried to enjoy my performance and I think I never enjoyed a program as much as I did here, so I’m very happy.”

Hendrickx won Belgium’s first European figure skating gold for 77 years in a close contest with defending champion Anastasiia Gubanova of Georgia and another Belgian, 17-year-old Nina Pinzarrone, as all three medalists skated near-flawless free skates.

Hendrickx already had a five-point lead from the short program and finished on a total 213.25 points, but had to wait for Gubanova and Pinzarrone to skate before she could celebrate. Gubanova scored 206.52 and Pinzarrone 202.29.

For the second year running, Russia and Belarus are barred from the European championships following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Before that, the last time a skater not representing Russia won the women’s gold medal was in 2013.

Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri won the ice dance title for the second straight year for Italy’s second gold medal of the championships.

They scored a total 214.38 to beat Britain’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson, who took the silver medal on 210.82 with a “Rocky”-themed program. The American-born Allison Reed and her partner Saulius Ambrulevicius won bronze for Lithuania with 203.07.

“We’re super happy about our performance,” Fabbri said. “The support that we received tonight (from the crowd) was incredible, one of the best that we received outside of Italy.”

Adam Siao Him Fa won the men’s gold medal Friday with a lead big enough to absorb the two-point deduction he earned for a banned backflip — a gesture, he said, “to push our sport, to develop it and to bring that element back.”

Lucrezia Beccari and Matteo Guarise won the pairs gold medal for Italy on Thursday. MDT/AP