Alexandra and Roman Zaretsky have won gold at the 24th Winter Universiade in Harbin (China) in a debut appearance of Israeli athletes at this event.

The Vesti newspaper, Feb. 26th 2009

The brother-and-sister duo captured an early lead over the rest of the field including the silver medalists at this year's Russian Nationals Ekaterina Rubleva and Ivan Shefer. The Zaretsky's final score was 177.43, which is 7 points higher than that of the Universiade's runners up.

"I want the audience to rise to the sounds of Hatikva ["The Hope" - Israel's National Anthem]", said Roma to his mother in a telephone talk after yesterday's original dance. Roma had a good reason to check it out that it's not the winner's country's National Anthem but the International Students Union's anthem that is played at the award ceremony. He and Sasha stood at the top of the podium as they saw the flag of Israel rising above the stadium.

After the duo was pushed down from 7th place in the original dance to 11th overall at the Europeans in Helsinki earlier this year because the judges marked one of the lifts executed by the brother and sister in their free dance as "illegal", a costly fine of more than 7 points, Alexandra and Roman had to pull themselves together and get ready, both physically and mentally, for the other events of the competitive season. They managed to do that at the Universiade staying above the skaters from Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and other countries.

"I'm happy for them and for the strong skate they put out", said the emotional Galit Chait shortly after the award ceremony. "Now it's time of hard work before the World Championships in Los Angeles, which are just a month away." Galit has already flown to Sofia, where her other trainees, Ariana Weintraub and Avidan Brown are preparing for their debut at Junior Worlds.

 

Photo by AP.