Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava: “Not everyone understands why we are going to the Junior Worlds. But if ISU rules allow it, we want to take the chance to compete again.”
Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava about winning bronze at the 2025 European Championships and plans for the season.
original source: Sports by Maya Bagriantseva
Gorgian pair skaters Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava finished third at the 2025 European Championships. Here’s a translation of their comments reported by Sports journalist Maya Bagriantseva.
“Luka Berulava: I also want to apologize for not speaking to the press yesterday (after the short program where the pair finished ninth). Unfortunately, I’m still learning to control my emotions, and when things don’t go well, I find it hard to accept.
Today, I was confident that we would perform well in our program. However, it turned out to be physically challenging — Nastya and I have been somewhat ill, with severe coughing, for three weeks.
Anastasiia Metelkina: We were well-prepared for the short program too, so it was a hundred times more frustrating to perform like we did yesterday. For the first time, all our training sessions went perfectly. Everything in our pair depends on the mindset, primarily mine, because the energy flows from me to Luka. He’s more calm and confident.
Today I managed to pull myself together; everything was different. Yesterday, I was too focused on winning, that was all I thought about. Then I told myself to let go of the situation and just enjoy the skate. It seems like I went through all the stages of acceptance yesterday: I cried, felt sad, and kept to myself.
Before the performance, Nastya Gubanova really supported me, and the team did their utmost to distract me, talked with me, and didn’t let me get upset.
Luka Berulava: We have a super team. At this championships, everyone except us has shown their best. We’re very proud of everyone. Our situation is such that there are no second numbers, no room for mistake; we must always perform at our best. And all the guys are handling it.
Anastasiia Metelkina: Everything depends on our mindset for the entire team – as we set our minds, so we skate. In training, Nika [Egadze] jumps a 4-4 combination, Nastya trains hard – and sometimes it just doesn’t work out at competitions.
There’s a competition in Holland and the World Junior Championships ahead of us. Then the World Championships and the hope that we’ll qualify for the team championship in Japan. So our season is in full swing.
Luka Berulava: We read that not everyone understands why we are going to the WJCs. But if ISU rules allow it, we want to take the chance to compete again. We need competitive experience, we need points for the ranking and we don’t want to sit at home.”
Related topics: Anastasiia Metelkina, European Championships, Luka Berulava
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