Siao Him Fa retains European figure skating gold despite losing points for an illegal backflip

KAUNAS, Lithuania (AP) — Winning the gold medal at the European figure skating championships just wasn’t enough for Adam Siao Him Fa. So he did a backflip.

The French skater was already on track to win gold for the second straight year when he added a backflip to his free skate routine on Friday — even though it’s illegal in figure skating and cost him points.

Already in the lead from Wednesday’s short program, by the time Siao Him Fa skated, other contenders had already dropped points in falls.

Siao Him Fa attempted four high-scoring quadruple jumps in his program — more than anyone else — and landing three of them gave him a big points advantage despite one fall. He was so sure of victory that he jumped a backflip, which is banned from figure skating competitions and earned him a two-point deduction.

“I’ve actually done this backflip for you people. It’s a little French touch,” Siao Him Fa told the crowd. French skater Surya Bonaly made history when she landed a backflip at the Winter Olympics in 1998 and was deducted points.

Siao Him Fa’s deduction — referred to as an “illegal element/movement” on the official scoresheet — made no difference to the podium as he still won with a total of 276.17 points, nearly 20 more than anyone else.

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Second place went to surprise contender Aleksandr Selevko of Estonia, who landed one quadruple toeloop in a clean skate to score 256.99 for the silver medal despite never having finished above 16th at a European or world championship before. Selevko seemed shocked when his score was announced and hugged his coaches in celebration.

Matteo Rizzo of Italy took the bronze medal on 150.87 despite falling on his final triple axel.

Defending champions Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri closed in on retaining their ice dance title earlier Friday by taking first place in the rhythm dance.

Just as they did last year, the Italian pair took a slender lead over Britain’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson ahead of Saturday’s free dance.

Skating to “Holding Out For A Hero”

by Bonnie Tyler, Guignard and Fabbri scored 86.80 points for a lead of 1.60 over Fear and Gibson.

Third place is held by Lithuania’s Allison Reed and Saulius Ambrulevicius on 80.73. The American-born Reed has skated for Lithuania since 2017.

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