Sawt Falasteen - Georgian Gubanova leads at European figure skating championships

The 22-year-old, who won the title in 2023 before finishing second last year, was awarded 68.99 points for her routine performed to ABBA's "Money, money, money" in Tallinn.

"I've had a difficult season, there's been a lot of bad luck, but I'm happy to have managed to pull myself together for this competition," said the Georgian.

Gubanova only holds a slender advantage of 0.05 points though from second-placed Niina Petrokina after the Estonian's impressive performance.

Switzerland's Kimmy Repond sits in third place on 68.68 points.

The women's competition was blown wide open by the withdrawal of reigning champion Loena Hendrickx, after the Belgian ended her season early to have ankle surgery.

Earlier, Germany's Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin posted the highest score in the pairs short programme.

They scored 71.59 points with Italy's 2023 European champions Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii (68.52 pts), and Hungarians Maria Pavlova and Alexei Sviatchenko (65.88) placed second and third.

In the absence of injured defending titleholders Lucrezia Beccari and Matteo Guarise of Italy, the German duo are now favourites for gold going into Thursday's free skate routine.

Hase and Volodin are seeking to add this to the successful defence of their ISU Grand Prix Final gold in Grenoble last month.

I.Saadi--SF-PST