Ukrainian pair of figure skaters Alexandra Nazarova and Maxim Nikitin decided to officially end their careers.

The skaters announced this on their Instagram pages..

" Those were great times. There were many funny moments, many times it was hard and even painful. But all these 20 years are still the best. We have always performed, first of all, for the audience"

We always wanted to show you new elements, we always tried to make our apps fun and interesting. We are very grateful to everyone who has been with us on this long journey.. And thank you to everyone who supported and helped us. For such a long time there were a lot of such people.

And thank you to all the fans. We wouldn't be able to do anything without you. We decided to end our sports career. But we don't want to end with figure skating. We really want to continue to work and please you, but not as athletes," The couple existed for almost 20 years and throughout their careers trained under the guidance of Galina Churilova, in particular, they collaborated with her during periods of training abroad.

In 2015, they received the first medal of the Junior World Championship for Ukraine in 15 years, becoming bronze medalists. They are the first and so far the only Ukrainian winners of the Youth Olympic Games in figure skating in individual disciplines.. The duet received "

In addition, the couple repeated the record of Irina Romanova and Igor Yaroshenko for the number of titles of champions of Ukraine in ice dancing.. They have six gold medals on their account (2014/15, 2016/17, 2017/18, 2019/20 - 2021/22).

Nazarova and Nikitin participated in the Olympic Games twice (2018, 2022). At the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, they reached the final (free program) and took 20th place.

At the level of adult World Championships, their highest career result is 15th place (2017, 2018), and at the European Championships - 9th (2017).

The last tournament for Nazarova and Nikitin was the 2022 World Cup in Montpellier, which took place a month after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainians performed in a rhythmic dance and took 16th place, although they did it without training, a competitive suit, and even a coach. Video performance won the hearts of many.

Recall that one of the leaders of the Ukrainian national gymnastics team ended her career at the age of 21.