Hurtado-Khaliavin and Smart-Díaz go to the Ice Dance final

MADRID, Jan. 23 (SportsFinding) –

The couples formed by Sara Hurtado and Kirill Khaliavin and Olivia Smart and Adrià Díaz finished in seventh and ninth position respectively in the Rhythmic Dance of the Ice Dance mode of the Figure Skating European that is being held in the Austrian town of Graz .

The Madrilenian and the skater of Russian origin, who made her routine to the music of 'Hello Dolly', added a total of 73.44, something far from her best score as a duo (77.03), but slightly better than the one achieved in the past Rostelecom Cup (72.01) and better than last year in Minsk (69.28).

Thus, Hurtado and Khaliavin also started better than in the European past when they were eighth inning and were located less than two points from the fifth place occupied by the Russians Tiffani Zagorski and Jonathan Guerreiro.

“We have been wanting to make the program completely clean and we have had some silly 'failures' in some elements, but in this program they cost a lot of points. We have advanced a lot in our skating and we will do everything in the Largo,” he said. Hurtado in statements provided by the Royal Spanish Federation of Ice Sports.

On the other hand, Olivia Smart and Adrià Díaz, current champions of Spain of the modality and who will also try to fight for the 'Top 5' after adding 72.19 points, very close to their best mark in a Short (72.61) to the sound of their name routine with the music of 'Grease'.

The British and Catalan, who last year in the Belarusian capital began with an optimal sixth place, could not get closer to their best score in Rhythmic Dance, the 76.62 that added in this program in the last Skate America.

“It has been very fun to interpret this program and although we are not very happy with the score, we have felt good and we are proud and very happy,” said Diaz.

The two duos are joined by Laura Barquero and Tòn Cónsul, who premiered in a European and who qualified on Wednesday for the final of the Couples modality after finishing in the fifteenth place.