A contender for the medal is Kurakova, who stood behind the podium in Espoo, Finland last year, which was the achievement of her life. Two years ago, he was fifth at the European Championship.
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– Katya can fight for a medal because she just has such skills. He was preparing for this competition abroad, he is not flying with us from Poland. He has gained such comfort in training in recent years and I hope he will be in good shape – Toruń Axel's coach Silvia Novak-Trebacca told PAP.
Four players from this club form the core of the team, which this year consists of seven people.
Laura Szchensna will take part in the soloist competition next to Kurakova. Among the soloists, Poland will be represented by Vladimir Samoilov. Dance couple Sofia Dowhal – Wiktor Kulesza and sports couple Julia Szczecinina and Michał Woźniak will also perform on the stage of Kaunas.
– Polish skating has been waiting for a similar European championship for a long time. For the first time since 2000, two soloists will perform at the event. The last time the national team had more than one person was in 2007. Exactly 16 years ago, in 2008, Poles were last represented in all categories. The last time we saw the sports couple was at the European Championship in 2013. We are looking forward to the performance of our competitors on the ice of Kaunas – the Polish Figure Skating Association (PZŁF) wrote in the announcement of the competition.
According to Novak-Trebaka, the Polish soloist can get into the top six, maybe even top ten of the competition. A year ago, after the short program, he was sixth, but in the free program he played poorly and ended up in 17th place.
– I evaluate Vladimir's chances according to his skills and potential. I know what he can do. The dance couple I'm watching will hopefully make it to the finals. All our representatives can achieve this result – said Novak-Trebaka.
According to him, the problem of Polish figure skating is not the potential of the players.
– We have quite good infrastructure, but we don't have it. Exercising at temperatures around 0 degrees has little to do with professional sports. Now we have a paradoxical situation where more and more children are interested in this beautiful sport. Using the example of the situation in Toruń, I can say that we have no way to harness their enthusiasm. There aren't as many watches on ice as needed, and those watches are very expensive. And the conditions were really difficult. It inhibits many children very quickly – says the experienced coach and two-time Olympian.
In his opinion, even the Polish national team is still far from the leaders of Europe, but “there are brilliant players in the team, such as Katya and Victor”.
– They are great players. Katya can definitely win a medal and I sincerely wish her the same. Our soloist can get into the top six, he really has that potential – he concluded.
KZ, PAP