Carolina Kostner (ITA) wins her third
European title en route to Vancouver.
Photo: AP/Ivan Sekretarev

The 2010 European Figure Skating Championships concluded today with the return to form of Italy’s Carolina Kostner, who took her third European title in four years. This week’s competition is the final major international event amongst European skaters before the Olympics next month, giving skaters a chance to fine-tune their programs and get competition-ready for Vancouver.

Related: Photos from the ladies' free skate
Related: More photos from the ladies' free skate

Perhaps no skater needed it more as a confidence booster than Kostner, whose season has been nothing short of a disaster. She is not known for being a strong early season skater, but her results have been poorer than usual, even finishing second at her home Nationals in December. But her two performances this week have put her back on track for the Olympics.

After a clean short program, Kostner started strongly in her free skate with her trademark triple flip-triple toe combination and a clean triple lutz, a jump that she has struggled with all season. But she had trouble with jumps later in the program and ended with a free skate score of 107.66 for a total of 173.46. She will need to put together a stronger set of jumps in Vancouver to have a chance at a medal, but her programs this week have been a promising sign for her after a poor season.

Like Kostner, reigning champion Laura Lepisto started off strong with a triple toe-triple toe combination. But as it has been the case during the season, she doubled a number of jumps that were meant to be triples, costing her valuable base points. She finished third in the free skate and head to Vancouver as the European silver medalist.

The surprise on the podium was Georgia’s Elene Gedevanishvili, who is perhaps best known for her strong and difficult short program in Torino four years ago. Since then, she has been inconsistent and unable to live up to the potential she showed in that program. She landed three clean triples in the free skate, including a triple-triple combination, to finish second in the free and pull up to third overall.

Lepisto’s teammate, Finnish silver medalist Kiira Korpi, could not hold onto a medal after a few downgraded jumps in her free skate and finished just off the podium in fourth. Two-time European silver medalist Sarah Meier pulled up to fifth place.

LADIES (final standings)
1. Carolina Kostner ITA – 173.46
2. Laura Lepisto FIN – 166.37
3. Elene Gedevanishvili GEO – 164.54
4. Kiira Korpi FIN – 163.68
5. Sarah Meier SUI – 157.44
6. Julia Sebestyen HUN – 156.77
7. Alena Leonova RUS – 153.57
8. Valentina Marchei ITA – 149.46
9. Ksenia Makarova RUS – 146.85
10. Elena Glebova EST – 138.93
11. Viktoria Helgesson SWE – 137.10
12. Tugba Karademir TUR – 136.42
13. Oksana Gozeva RUS – 135.39
14. Jenna McCorkell GBR – 128.06
15. Ivana Reitmayerova SVK – 125.31
16. Sarah Hecken GER – 121.79
17. Sonia Lafuente ESP – 121.15
18. Natalia Popova UKR – 113.35
19. Teodora Postic SLO – 113.35
WD Susanna Poykio FIN

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