Russian figure skating duo Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov miraculously avoided a potentially disastrous fall during an overhead lift while performing at the 2020 European Championships in Graz, Austria.
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Prior to the incident the two had flawlessly pulled off the technical elements in their short program, when suddenly Morozov seemed to have difficulty catching his partner coming down. For a moment it looked as though Tarasova might slip through his grasp and crash onto the ice.
Fortunately, Morozov managed somehow to maintain his balance, saving Tarasova from what could have been an horrific fall and injury.
“It was an accident. I didn’t have time to be frightened, I just saw that the ice getting closer. I was just thinking that I need to land on my feet, plus I knew that Volodya [Morozov] was holding me,” Tarasova said.
But the error did not go unnoticed by the judges, whose deductions dropped the pair into third place, just 0.02 points ahead of Italian pairing Nicole Della Monica and Matteo Guarise.
The pairs short program was won by another Russian duo, Aleksandra Boikova and Dmitri Kozlovskii, who nailed all of their elements and set a new world record with a stunning 82.34 points.
Compatriots Daria Pavliuchenko and Denis Khodykin came in second in the short program, with 74.92 points. The winners in pair skating will be crowned on Friday after the free routines.