Berezhnaya & Sikharulidze (RUS) - 1997 World Figure Skating Championships, Pairs' Free Skate

Lausanne, SWITZERLAND - 1997 World Figure Skating Championships, Pairs' Free Skate - First a profile on Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze of Russia focusing on the skating accident suffered by Elena when her then pairs partner Oleg Shliakhov's skate blade penetrated into her skull during side-by-side camels they were doing in practice. The profile also focused on her amazing recovery from that accident, and on her separation from Shliakhov to skate with her new partner, Anton. Then, it's their Free Skate where Anton had a meltdown of nerves, and they ended up placing 12th in the Free Skate. Anton would be so upset, he would not even stay in the Kiss N Cry area to wait for the scores. They would drop from 3rd to 9th Place overall.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Berezhnaya
• Sikarulidze
• 1997
• figure
• skating

[pm43810]

I wish we could've seen that mess of ordinals

[russianskatingfan]

That pink flowery blouse he is wearing is not appropriate for a man.

[ChristineTheHippie]

@intldawn They hadn't even been together for a year at this point. Very sad. They're one of my favourite pairs. Almost everyone has meltdowns where it's like they're legs seem to fall off. Part of learning and growing.

[intldawn]

With all the success they'd had up to this point and how much adversity they'd overcome, it was easy to forget how young and inexperienced they were as a pair. What a heartbreaking scene, seeing them so deflated because you could already see the potential for how good they could be. What a disaster.