Niina Petrokina: “When I think about the Europeans, I can’t say I did anything extraordinarily special in my programs, but I was in the right place at the right time and didn’t make the mistakes I had been making previously.”
Niina Petrokina about her great season.
original source: sport.err.ee dd. April 6th 2025 by Anu Saarits
Reigning European Champion Niina Petrokina discussed her outstanding competitive season on the ETV sports show. Here’s a translation of her comments posted on ERR.
The 20-year-old Petrokina made history as the first Estonian figure skater to become a European champion. At the end of March, she once again made Estonian figure skating history by securing Estonia’s best-ever result at the World Championships in Boston, finishing eighth.
“I wouldn’t confidently say that this year was a big leap in development, but there were definitely small steps forward. For example, when I think about the European Championships, I can’t say I did anything extraordinarily special in my programs, but I was in the right place at the right time and didn’t make the mistakes I had been making previously. I just skated my programs cleanly,” Petrokina shared in the ERR studio.
One key to her success was a new training approach. “I started practicing my programs as if I were competing. Now I skate in training the same way I would in competition. That helped me and gave me more confidence during competitions,” she explained.
“At the European Championships, I wasn’t thinking about a specific placement or score. I simply went to compete and tried to do what I could, and it worked out. But at the World Championships, I started having thoughts about what placement I could get,” she noted.
“Initially, when asked after the World Championships if I was satisfied with eighth place, I said, of course, I’m happy. But now I’ve started thinking that I could have done even better. I didn’t skate my programs cleanly at Worlds. A World medal isn’t so far away. I have potential, and now I just need to train even harder. I hope that next season I can deliver even better results.”
“The biggest goal is to add the triple axel, which I will start training again, and for the short program, I aim to perform a jump combination in the second half of the program.”
The European champion will begin preparing for the new season early. “I rested for one week, and starting tomorrow, I’ll slowly get back into training. In June, I’ll take a one-week vacation to a warm country, but for now, my training process is starting again.”
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