Anastasia Gubanova: “I’m happy that I was able to stay on the podium, I understood that I had no chance at gold. I’m very happy for Niina Petrokina as an athlete: to win in front of a home crowd is a special feeling.”
Anastasia Gubanova about winning silver at the European Championships.
original source: Sports by Maya Bagriantseva
Georgian skater Anastasia Gubanova won silver at the 2025 European Championships. Here’s a translation of her comments reported by Sports journalist Maya Bagriantseva.
“I’m happy that I was able to stay on the podium and that I have won a medal at the European Championships for the third consecutive year.
However, I am not very pleased with my performance, but I can say that today was very tough mentally, and I’m glad that I managed to pull myself together.
Now, I will take a bit of a rest — first and foremost, mentally. There’s the World Championships ahead, where I will need to give it my 100 percent.
This hasn’t been the happiest competitions for me, compared to previous seasons, but this year I want to prepare correctly and show my maximum,” said Gubanova.
“I have the same story at every European Championships: I come off the ice after the six-minute warm-up and I cry in the locker room. My nerves are on edge, the stress is immense, and apparently, that’s how my body reacts. Fortunately, this time Anastasia Metelkina (Georgian pair skater) was with me all the time; she specifically came to the rink today to support me.
Imagine: I’m crying, and Anastasia keeps telling me jokes one after another without pause. And it worked! I started laughing, and then Anastasia again told me a hundred times that I am beautiful and smart – and I calmed down, ha-ha. An incredibly responsible friend: she says she specifically collected all the jokes into one file to keep track and distract me as much as possible. I can’t express how grateful I am to her.
I stepped onto the ice, and around me were ovations for Niina Petrokina, the noise was incredible, one could go deaf. Not only did my legs tremble, but I also couldn’t feel myself at all. For the first time in my life, I was glad that I don’t know English well – I didn’t hear Niina’s scores and wasn’t distracted. I saw that she skated cleanly and even before I started my program, I understood that I had no chance at gold, no matter how well I skated.
Therefore, I am even more pleased that I managed to skate cleanly, not perfectly, but without major mistakes. It was a decent skate, and I’m genuinely satisfied. After the skate, there was an immense feeling of emptiness and relief. And happiness, that it all was over.
I am very proud of Niina and her historic medal for Estonia. I think I understand how she feels right now. I am very happy for her as an athlete: to win in front of a home crowd is a special feeling,” reports Sports’ correspondent Maya Bagriantseva, quoting Gubanova.
Related topics: Anastasiia Gubanova, European Championships, Niina Petrokina
Nice sportsmanship from Anastasia. And I must say – competitions are just so intresting when you cannot be too sure about the winner and other medalists in advance. It could be Anastasia, Niina, Nina, and then Kimmy or Italian girls. But this year was Niina’s. Congrats to all!
Interesting interwiev. Anastasia is very open and very sincere. It looks she is very mental unstable. I hope she will find some good mental coach or someone who can help. Also she is very lucky to have friend like Metelkina. And huge credit to her, for appreciating Niina, no hate, no excuses, no self-pity, just friendship. Nice.
Well, I was at the arena rooting for Niina, who was amazing and had a skate of her life. But know I feel bad for Gubanova, must have been hard after Niina. We all know after that skate there will be gold. But Niina should have been first at the SP too, she was’nt because of the error the judge made who gave her 0.75 for skating skills. So it is all because of that mistake. Niina would have been last to skate, it would have been great ending to the competition and Gubanova would have been second last to skate and I think that would have been better feeling for her too. Also now Gubs knows she won little gold only because of mistake of judge.