Belgian comes third in figure skating 26/01/2007 00:00

26 January 2007

BRUSSELS — When Kevin Van der Perren stepped on the ice you could feel the tension. He was a favourite to be a winner. Both judges and fans weren't disappointed. Van der Perren, who skated to the music from the Pirates of the Caribbean, reached a personal best in the free programme, which was enough to earn him the bronze medal, De Standaard reports.

The 24-year-old is the second Belgian figure skater in history to win a bronze medal at a European or World Championship, or the Olympic Games. The first time Belgians were third in the mens' programme was in 1947, when Fernand Leemans gave his best performance.

Van der Perren was the last one to skate yesterday. He had a difficult task beating the results of Byelorussian Sergei Davydov (204,78 points), which involved beating his own personal record.

Van der Perren opened beautifully with a challenging fourfold jump. Also the rest of his programme was nearly perfect, giving him an advantage of 0.07 points over Davydov.

[Copyright Expatica News 2007]

Subject: Belgian news