Twelve years after Florent Amodio, the last Frenchman to win a European title, Adam Siao Him Fa, 21, was crowned European figure skating champion on Friday January 27 in Espoo (Finland). With a total of 267.77 points, the Frenchman finished ahead of the Italian Matteo Rizzo (259.92 points) and the Swiss Lukas Britschgi (248.01 points).
In the absence of the defending champion, the Russian Mark Kondratiuk, suspended due to the war in Ukraine, the first place seemed more accessible than ever for the native of Bordeaux, 14th at the Olympic Games last year. All the technical elements of his free program were not perfectly executed in the first part of the choreography, but Siao Him Fa, who skated to music by Woodkid, later freed himself. He had a comfortable lead of more than ten points after the short program on Wednesday anyway.
This European gold medal rewards a great season for the Frenchman, crowned in November at the Grand Prix de France in Angers as well as at the French championships a month later.
The other committed tricolor, Kevin Aymoz, finished at the foot of the podium (240.92 points), as in 2019. On the music of the film Gladiator, the Frenchman could only chain two combinations of jumps, which earned him to lose a few points.
