Loena Hendrickx takes sixth place after a short freestyle swim in Sochi, WR for Valjeeva | Snowboarding

Hendrix earned her first medal in a major competition in Turin, having also placed fifth at the World Championships. Her best performance in Italy, with PR in freestyle (145.53) and thus in total (219.05) was followed up last week in the Belgian Championship. There her short freestyle was also above 70 (71.49) with a best freestyle (149.55), for a total of 221.04.

Things did not go well in Russia today. There was no need for a confidence boost, her leaps lacked conviction this time around. The difficulty of the jumps was also lower than the difficulty of the real jumps. According to the jury, there was not much to criticize about the quality of the skating technique.

Hendricks realized that “my performance today was not good at all”. “I was a bit tired, although the training went well. The bronze in Italy gave me a lot of confidence, I felt a lot of pressure to go free at the time, but I just stood there and did my best.”

Hendrix appeared on the ice as the first rider of the second set. The three Russians, who could all boast a higher personal rank than the Belgian knight, came after them. Ekaterina Ryakova of Azerbaijan and Ekaterina Korakova of Poland were also allowed to present themselves in Group B.

Both of them were born Ekaterina in Moscow and can also be considered part of the Russian School. Hendrickx didn’t have to compete against 3 but 5 Russians. Although Ekaterina has not yet reached the level of her former compatriots.

15-year-old world youth champion Kamila Valjeeva overshadowed the field with her outstanding performance. She got a total of 87.42 points, which is a world record. Her jumps – including an awesome triple axel (see below) – were gems.

Elisabetta Toktamysheva also came a good distance from the field with 80.10. The third place came as a surprise to the American Maria Bell, with a score of 69.37.

Tomorrow free free on the program.

The Rostelecom Cup competition is the sixth and final in the Grands Prix series of the season. It’s the last chance to qualify for next month’s GP Final in Osaka, Japan, from December 9-12.

Earlier, coach Yorick Hendricks announced that he and Luena do not wait for a difficult trip to the Far East less than two months before the Winter Olympics.