Kazakh figure skater and 2026 Olympic champion Mikhail Shaidorov sits third after the men's short program at the Ondrej Nepela Memorial Challenger Series event in Bratislava, Slovakia, infohub.kz reports.
The judges awarded the Kazakh skater 95.98 points. That is a new personal best for him in the short program — at the Olympics his score in that segment was 92.94 points.
Russia's Evgeni Semenenko leads the event with 101.16 points, while Italy's Daniel Grassl is second with 99.10 points.
According to media reports, Shaidorov cleanly landed a difficult quadruple Lutz-triple toe loop combination as well as a triple Axel. The only slight flaw came on the landing of his quadruple toe loop.
The final results and medal standings at the Nepela Memorial will be known today, September 26, after the men present their free programs.
Earlier, Kursiv wrote that Mikhail Shaidorov had begun work on a new program with renowned choreographer Shae-Lynn Bourne. The collaboration with Bourne could become one of the key elements of Shaidorov's preparation for the new competitive cycle. She is considered one of the most respected choreographers in world figure skating and has worked with a number of leading skaters.
It was also reported earlier that Shaidorov received his prize money for winning the 2026 Olympic Games four months later. According to the press service of the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, the athlete received $250,000 (about 122 million tenge). That was exactly the amount of prize money for the gold medal that was publicly discussed in February.