Kazakh figure skater Mikhail Shaidorov made his first official appearance since winning gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. The 22-year-old is competing at the Ondrej Nepela Memorial, a Challenger Series event hosted in Bratislava, according to infohub.kz.
In the short program, the Kazakh skater avoided major mistakes. He cleanly landed a quadruple Lutz-triple toe loop combination and a triple Axel. However, he had a slight landing issue on the quadruple toe loop, which reduced its value from the base score.
Shaidorov earned 95.98 points for his performance, a new personal best in the short program. He sits in third place on the leaderboard.
Russia's Evgeni Semenenko, competing as a neutral athlete, leads with 101.16 points. Italy's Daniel Grassl is second with 99.10.
The free skate at the event in the Slovak capital will take place on Saturday, September 26.
Meanwhile, a Junior Grand Prix event is underway in Batumi, Georgia. Kazakhstan's Artur Smagulov placed eighth in the men's singles competition with a total of 186.24 points after both programs.