IN their international debut as figure skating partners for the Philippines, Fil-American Isabella Gamez and Russian Alexander Korovin tallied 112.40 points and finished ninth out of 10 entries in the Finlandia Trophy in Espoo, Finland over the weekend.
With not enough practice after their training facility, the Hertz Arena in Estero Florida, was converted into an evacuation center for Hurricane Ian, Gamez and Korovin scored 44.25 points in the short program and 78.15 points in the free skate for their combined output in the two events.
The German pairs of Annika Hocke and Robert Kunkel and Alisa Efimova and Ruben Blommaert finished 1-2 with scores of 180.62 and 177.11 points, respectively, in the six-nation event. The Canadian duo of Brooke McIntosh and Bejamin Mimar took the bronze medal (166.61).
“I am hoping that they (Gamez and Korovin) will do better in the next events. They haven’t been competing for two years so I think this first one is to refresh them with the feeling of competing again,” said Philippine Skating Union president Nikki Cheng.
It marked the first partnership of Gamez and Korovin, who can choose to compete under either flag of their respective nationalities up to the world championship level under international figure skating rules, Cheng said.
“The only restriction is they cannot perform together for either of their countries in the Winter Olympics,” she added.
Gamez, whose parents were born in the country and of Spanish ancestry, saw action for Spain and was its national junior pair skating champion with Torun Consul in 2018 when they also placed 13th in the world junior skating championships.
She switched to Philippine citizenship in 2019, teaming up with Canadian David Alexandre Paradis to place fourth in the 2020 Four Continents Championship in Seoul, Korea.
