European Championship figure skating: Juulia Turkkila and Matthias Versluis succeeded right away – a setback for Yuka Orihara and Juho Pirinen

Ice dancing star couple Juulia Turkkila–Matthias Versluis are the best Finns in seventh place after the rhythm dance of the European Championships.

Turkkila and Versluis got 78.59 points for their rhythmic dance. They appeared in Sheffield for the first time of the season at international level.

“Today we stayed very calm. There was no feeling of pressure,” Versluis said after the performance.

“We stayed in the moment and enjoyed it, we got to interact with the audience. It felt really great to perform the rhythmic dance, we are really satisfied,” he continued in the Taitoluisteliito recording.

Finland of another pair of stars Yuka Oriharan and Juho Pirinen the program took an unfortunate turn when the pair lightly bumped into each other.

The couple, who finished seventh in last year’s European Championships, is in 16th place with 64.99 points before Saturday’s free dance.

“Of course it’s sad, there’s no denying it. It wasn’t the kind of performance we were looking for, but it was a really surprising mistake. It’s never happened before, there was no way to save that situation. The spike just hit the ice, and then it was off,” Pirinen said.

The couple has reached more than 70 points in their rhythm dance this season.

“It’s a shame that it happened during the step sequence of the figure dance, which is an extremely expensive point for a mistake. If it had come in transition, it wouldn’t have affected so much. But today it did,” Pirinen said.

“It’s ok! Shit happens“, Orihara acknowledged with a familiar quickness.

“We just need to rest today.”

EM-but Finland’s third pair to debut Daniela Ivanitskiy–Matthew Sperry got 50.16 points and was in second last place 27.

The 20 best couples of rhythm dance will be seen in Saturday’s free dance.

French Laurence Fournier Beadry and Guillaume Cizeron hold the top spot with a score of 86.93 after the rhythm dance.

A favorite of the home crowd, the British couple Lilah Fear–Lewis Gibson is second only 1.46 points away. Italian Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri are third, less than a point behind Fear and Gibson.