MOSCOW, Sep 22 Champions of the Beijing Olympic Team Tournament Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov, performing in ice dancing, will miss the first half of the 2022/23 season. On Thursday, Sinitsina and Katsalapov were not included in the test skates of the Russian national team, which will be held on September 24-25 in Moscow. «It is fundamentally important for Vika and me so that you always learn all our main news from us, only 100% trust our words and posts. Friends, we had an amazing Olympic cycle. Incredible. We won the European and World Championships, we were preparing for the Olympics in very difficult conditions! This was our personal marathon for 8 years, which brought us a huge amount of emotions, impressions, happiness, medals, including the most important Olympic medals in the life of an athlete,» Katsalapov wrote in his Telegram channel. «But at the same time it took a huge amount of strength . We p constantly on the ice: training, ice shows. So we keep the form at 100%, but we felt that we want to reboot, both mentally and physically. Therefore, after consulting with each other, coaches and loved ones, we decided to skip the first half of the season in order to rest and recover. Moreover, soon we have a long-awaited event in life, our wedding! And I want to focus on this as much as possible, enjoy every moment of preparation, of the day itself. Make time for each other. We hope that you will treat our decision with understanding and support it,» he added. Sinitsina is 27 years old, Katsalapov is 31 years old. The skaters have been performing together since 2014 and became world champions (2021), two-time European champions (2020, 2022), champions of the Beijing Olympic Games (2022) in team competitions, silver medalists of the Beijing Games in ice dancing, winners of the World Team Championship (2021).
