Ice: Guignard-Fabbri, silver at the World Figure Skating Championships

Charlene Guignard-Marco Fabbri’s dance at the World Championships in Saitama is silver: and a consecration for the couple of Fiamme Azzurre on their eleventh participation in the event. Their union culminated, after a very long lead-in, in a season – the current one – which, after successes in two stages, had already brought them the European Championship title (in Espoo) and third place in the Grand Prix final (in Turin) at the Circuit (in Angers and in Sheffield). All great premieres. At 35 and 33, that of Charlene and Marco, who have even been together romantically for a dozen years, is the medal of maturity: the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympics remain far away, but perhaps a little less now.

The race

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The students of former world champion Barbara Fusar Poli, outdoors, a very intense and demanding program with dark tones, including music, confirm the great second place of Friday’s Rhythm Dance. The placement in the first seven places does not change. The gold goes to the American Madison Chock-Evan Bates with 226.01 points, who already won silver in 2015 and bronze in 2016 and 2022 and has participated in nine World Cups. Despite their almost irrelevant fall because it wasn’t due to an element, they’re bringing the country back to the podium of the specialty ten years after the success of Meryl Davis-Charlie White in London 2013. Guignard-Fabbri are second with 219.85 and 131.64 in the free, all personal firsts. As in Stockholm 2021, Canadian Piper Gilles-Paul Poirier, another tandem with great experience (217.88), awarded bronze instead. Followed by Britain’s Lilah Fear-Lewis Gibson (214.73), fellow Canadians Laurence Fournier Beaudry-Nikolaj Soerensen (214.73) and fellow Americans Caroline Green-Michael Parsons (201.44). Applause also to the second Italian couple, Viktoria Manni-Carlo Roethlisberger, eighteenth with 162.97 (seventeenth outdoors), after finishing 23rd in 2019, again in Saitama when they were still flying the Swiss flag.

Story

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Charlene and Marco, last year in Montpellier, present very rich technical content. You earn max level (4) in all elements except the single leg sequence (3). What makes the difference is their precision and attention to detail. Result of the meticulous work they do every day in training on the IceLab ice rink in the Assago Forum. She is a chemist with a PhD, French from Brest, he is about to graduate in foreign literature, he is from Milan, their artistic liaison dates back to a meeting that took place in 2009 on “Ice Partner Search”, a site that brings together skaters on Searching for “soulmates” . Meanwhile, their result is part of a tradition, that of the blue dance. Before them on the world podium were Barbara Fusar Poli-Maurizio Margaglio, silver at Nice 2000 and gold at Vancouver 2001, Federica Faiella-Massimo Scali, bronze at Torino 2010 and Anna Cappellini-Luca Lanotte, gold at Saitama 2014. The Japanese location on the outskirts of Tokyo bodes well for the Italian figure: the only two-medal tricolor World Championship (including a bronze for Carolina Kostner) dates back to this edition. This time we include those of Sara Conti-Niccolò Macii in the artist couples.