Olympic bronze medalist Carolina Kostner plans to compete for the first time in almost three years in December.
Kostner, a 29-year-old Italian, is scheduled to skate at Golden Spin, a lower-level event in Zagreb, Croatia, from Dec. 9-10. Italian media first reported the news last month, and somebody close to the skater confirmed it for the first time Tuesday.
The Italian Championships are later in December, with the European Championships in January and the world championships in March and April.
Previous reports had Kostner saying she would return in September or that she would return at a small Italian event in November.
The six-time world championships medalist hasn’t competed outside of a pro-am since taking bronze at the March 2014 World Championships, one month after she became the second-oldest Olympic women’s singles medalist since 1928 in Sochi, according to sports-reference.com.
In January, Kostner finished second to retired Canadian 2010 Olympic bronze medalist Joannie Rochette in a free-skate only exhibition in Japan, after serving a backdated 21-month suspension for helping ex-boyfriend and Olympic race-walking champion Alex Schwazer evade drug testers in 2012.
Kostner said before the Schwazer controversy that she would take the 2014-15 season off.
She has recently worked with Russian Alexei Mishin, the longtime coach of Yevgeny Plushenko.
