Loena Hendrickx is increasingly emerging as a potential Belgian star at the Winter Olympics. At the Gran Premio d’Italia she skated the best short freestyle of the entire field, calculated on her 22nd birthday.
Loena Hendrickx had already started her winter season in Finland with a bang a month ago. At the Gran Premio d’Italia, she proved that this was not a one-time outlier.
Hendrickx skated her free freestyle on Lara Fabian’s Caruso and completed an almost perfect exercise, which gave her 73.52 points. That is almost one and a half points more than her previous personal best.
The fact that she is also in the lead with that score after the short freestyle (including for world champion Anna Shcherbakova) made her 22nd birthday complete. Tomorrow Hendrickx will defend her lead in the freestyle.
Brother coach Jorik Hendrickx: “Still a small hitch”
As befits a demanding coach, Jorik Hendrickx did not want to talk about his sister’s flawless freestyle: “There was a small hiccup with that first pirouette.”
“But we are now immediately focusing on tomorrow’s freestyle. The Russians have not shown what they can do, but they always show resilience.”
Watch the free freestyle of Loena Hendrickx
