TALLINN, Estonia — Anastasiia Gubanova leads the short program at the European figure skating championships, seeking to reclaim her title on Wednesday. With the previous champion, Loena Hendrickx, sidelined due to an ankle injury, the competition remained competitive, with only a mere 0.31 points distinguishing the top three competitors.

Performing to an interpretation of Abba’s “Money, Money, Money,” Gubanova, the reigning European champion from 2023, successfully executed a triple flip-triple toeloop combination, a double axel, and a triple lutz, earning a score of 68.99 points. As she heads into the crucial free skate scheduled for Friday, Gubanova holds a slight edge of 0.05 points over Estonia’s Niina Petrokina, who thrilled her local audience with a flawless routine that featured a triple lutz-triple toeloop combination. Swiss skater Kimmy Repond, who secured bronze at the 2023 championships, is in third place with a score of 68.68 points.

In the pairs short program, Germany’s Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin positioned themselves strongly for their first title at the European championships. Fresh off their victory at last month’s Grand Prix Final, Hase and Volodin delivered a clean performance overall, aside from a one-point penalty for a timing infraction, finishing with a score of 71.59 points. They lead by over three points against Italy’s Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii, who lost points when Conti fell to a knee while landing a throw triple loop.

With a follow-up score of 65.88, Hungary’s Maria Pavlova and Alexei Sviatchenko sit in third place. Notably absent from this year’s competition are last year’s champions, Lucrezia Beccari and Matteo Guarise from Italy, due to Beccari’s season-ending foot injury that necessitated surgery. The pairs free skating event is set to take place on Thursday.