Host nation Georgia clinched their first gold medal of the Winter European Youth Olympic Festival (EYOF) Bakuriani 2025 with a memorable performance from figure skater Inga Gurgenidze.
At the new state-of the-art Ice Arena in Batumi, Gurgenidze climbed from third in yesterday’s short program to first after the free skating in the Junior Girls’ event. She scored 58.84 points in the first phase of the competition, trailing the leader Elina Goidina of Estonia who notched 62.60.
However, Gurgenidze excelled in the free skating, and her score of 128.97 was more than 10 points clear of the remainder of the field. That left her with a finishing total of 187.81 for gold, with Goidina taking silver with 178.16 and Leandra Tzimpoukakis of Switzerland bronze with 177.42.
In Bakuriani, Italy’s Daniel Pedranzini cemented his status as one of the stars to emerge from the Winter EYOF by adding another gold medal to his tally in Cross-Country Skiing.
After his victory in the Boys’ 7.5km Classic on Tuesday (11 February), Pedranzini followed it up with a dominant victory in the 10km Free event, finishing in 23:46.2. Closest challenger Topias Vuorela of Finland was 27.4 seconds further back as he matched his silver medal effort from Tuesday, and the podium was completed by France’s Gaspard Cottaz.
“Two gold medals, I was definitely not expecting it,” Pedranzini said.
“And I was fine. I was like the other day, I am in shape and I like the track, the weather is just beautiful.”
The other Cross-Country Skiing gold went to Gaëtane Breniaux of France, who upgraded her silver from the Girls’ 5km Classic to gold in the 7.5km Free. She clocked a time of 20:48.8, denying Malva Nisen of Sweden a second gold of the Winter EYOF as she finished 12.4 seconds off the pace. Anouchka Neuville doubled France’s presence on the podium in third.
“Frankly it’s really cool, I didn’t expect at all to win a medal today,” gold medallist Breniaux said after her victory.
“The sensations before the race and seeing the others, honestly I’m really happy with the race I ran.”
In today’s Alpine skiing, Storm Andre Hagen also improved from a silver in the Boys’ Giant Slalom on Monday (10 February) to gold in the Slalom. A blistering first run of 45.48 put him in a commanding position, and meant he could afford a slower second run of 46.31 to finish with a total of 1:31.79 – more than a second clear of silver medallist Luken Garitano Iturbe of Spain.
“It was really fun, I had a great time” Hagen said of the competition.
“The first run was pretty good, I was leading and then a pretty problematic second run, but I still came out on top so that’s pretty good.”
Bronze went to Great Britain’s Zak Carrick-Smith, who was a finalist of last year’s Winter Piotr Nurowski Prize for the best young European athlete.
Today’s Boys’ Ice Hockey action in Tbilisi saw Slovakia beat Ukraine 7-4 to record their second win in Group A and Austria begin their tournament with a 5-2 victory against Czechia in Group B.
Day five of the Winter EYOF will feature medal events in Alpine skiing, biathlon and figure skating.
