SHEFFIELD, England — Niina Petrokina completed one of figure skating’s great comeback performances to retain her European championship title Friday, three months after Achilles tendon surgery.
Petrokina landed seven triple jumps in a clean, personal-best free skate to music from the movie “Dune” to score 216.14 points, a score that ranks the Estonian among some of the world’s best ahead of next month’s Winter Olympics.
“I don’t know how I do it,” Petrokina said when asked about her recovery. “I needed everything that happened for this moment.”
Petrokina had competed in only second-tier events and her national championships since surgery in October. She’d struggled with pain for much of 2025 since her breakthrough European championship win on home ice a year ago.
She is the first skater to win back-to-back European women’s titles since Evgenia Medvedeva of Russia in 2017.
As other skaters made mistakes, 2024 champion Loena Hendrickx of Belgium managed her own comeback statement. Hendrickx had been fifth after Wednesday’s short program but took the silver medal at 191.26 after struggling throughout last year with the return of a years-old ankle injury.
As Petrokina’s score was announced, Hendrickx made a gesture of bowing to the champion.
Lara Naki Gutmann won bronze for Italy on 186.87 after two top contenders from the short program missed the podium with erratic free skates. Nina Pinzarrone of Belgium dropped from second to fourth overall and Anna Pezzetta of Italy from third to eighth.
Ice dance France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron took the lead in the ice dance despite a dispute between Cizeron and his ex-partner overshadowing the event.
Cizeron won the Olympic gold medal in 2022 with Gabriella Papadakis, who has published a book describing him as controlling and their partnership as unequal.
He has contested her claims and called the comments part of a “smear campaign.” Papadakis said Friday that she lost a commentary role with NBC for the upcoming Winter Olympics.
Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron scored 86.93 points to lead the dance event ahead of the free dance Saturday, leading Britain’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson at 85.47 and Italy’s Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri at 84.48.
