Minerva Hase/Nikita Volodin: „This was a victory of our entire team“

Minerva Hase and Nikita Volodin have taken the first European title for Germany since 2011 when Aljona Savchenko/Robin Szolkowy claimed gold in Bern. 

You are now European Champions. How did it feel when you won?

Minerva: At first we didn’t really realize it. When they showed the points for the Free Skating and first place was next to it, all the pressure was gone. At this moment, really all the emotions came out, the tension that was with us the past two weeks, evaporated suddenly. I still haven’t realized it fully but it is in any case an awesome feeling that all these years of pair and single skating have paid off. 

Nikita: I didn’t understand it right away. We were looking at that screen. Mentally you always assume that the competitors skated clean, I am prepared for that. I knew we had a mistake but not how serious it was. I didn’t exactly see what Minerva did it in the jump combination, I just knew that she somehow landed awkwardly. We knew when we show a 100% we are most likely to keep first place as we had an advantage from the Short Program. Obviously it was a shock when we saw the score. You can’t believe it in that moment. You have invested so much time, we are training so much and all this for this moment – to see the first place on the screen. We feel how important that is for our country that we represent. We see the support that we get and how many fans came. Compared to last year, there were five times as many of our fans here than in Lithuania. That helps us a lot. When I do a lift and everyone applauds I just have to push through, that is not the moment to give up. This means a lot to us and we are now even more motivated to work. The next season is even more important because it is the Olympic season and we want everything to be ideal and perfect so that we will show our very best at the right time and the right hour.