VIENNA, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Dmitri Aliev of Russia won the first European title for a male Russian athlete since 2012 at the European Figure Skating Championships on Thursday.
Aliev also became the first new European men's champion since 2013. Spain's Javier Fernandez won seven consecutive titles before retiring last year.
16-year-old Artur Danielian, the youngest competitor in the Men's event, made it a one-two for Russia by clinching silver. Morisi Kvitelashvili earned the bronze, becoming the first Georgian man to win a medal at the European Figure Skating Championships.
Dancing to "The Sound of Silence", Aliev landed a quad toe, a quad toe-triple toe as well as six triple jumps amid difficult spins and footwork. The only glitch in his expressive and powerful performance was an under-rotated quad Lutz. The Russian champion set a new personal best of 184.44 points and racked up 272.89 points to move up from second and take the title.
"At the end of my program I cried out of happiness and feeling proud. I could not hold back the tears, because right away I had images in my head of my path to this result. Now on the podium, I just felt crazily happy, it was a firework inside," Aliev shared.
Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France took a narrow lead in the ice dance on Thursday as they seek to extend their unbeaten run of nearly two years.
The French duo scored 88.78 points to lead by 0.05 points ahead of Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov of Russia in the rhythm dance event.
Their free dance will be held on Saturday, while the Ladies short program and pairs free skate will be held on Friday.
