Javier Fernandez, Spain’s lone Olympic figure skating medalist, will compete for the last time at the European Championships in January, according to Spanish news agency EFE.
Fernandez, 27, previously said that his third Olympics in PyeongChang would be his last. He skipped the fall Grand Prix Series in favor of focusing on Europeans, which he has won the last six years.
The Madrid native earned Olympic bronze in South Korea, adding to his 2015 and 2016 World titles and becoming Spain’s third Winter Games medalist in the last 45 years.
Fernandez said in 2016 that after every competition — win or lose — the Spanish royal family sent a letter to his home in Spain. After he repeated as world champion in 2016, the correspondence included an invitation to the Zarzuela Palace.
Fernandez, from a nation with maybe 20 ice rinks, made his world championships debut in 2007 and finished 35th out of 42 skaters.
He would have earned a medal at the 2014 Sochi Olympics if not for repeating a free-skate jump that cost him enough points to drop from third to fourth. A rule change the following season, had it been in place in Sochi, would have made Fernandez the bronze medalist in 2014.
OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!
