HOCKE / KUNKEL (GER) | Pairs Free Skating | ISU World Championships | Boston 2025 | #FigureSkating

So to get us underway in the pairs freeskate here, first medals of these world championships to be awarded tonight. It's the German team who must be bitterly disappointed to be going into this, lying in 20th place. This is Anika Hocker and Robert Kunkel. Ending clean on the twist, it's a good solid start. Wrong on the Salchow, that's better, double axel, single axel, double axel, he was a little bit off axis there, couldn't quite find the right foot. Huge throat triple loop. Oh, there it goes, that's the throat triple flip. So you can see he's absolutely spent, given it everything he possibly can through that free program. Anika Hocker and Robert Kunkel for Germany. Not quite the start that we're looking for, I don't think. Mistake on the Salchows there, started off really good with the twist. Something that struck me, I don't know if you felt the same, Kirsten, that they didn't really seem to have an awful lot of speed through the lifts. You know what, Chris, that's exactly what I was going to say, and we see that Robert is, seems to be extremely tired at the end. I felt like the lift turns were significantly slower and more labored than I've seen from them in the past, and that will contribute to the amount of grade of execution extra marks that they get for these elements. Their lifts are all in at level 4 right now, so they did do them to their exact grade of difficulty that they wanted to, but the grade of execution won't be quite what they're accustomed to getting. And, of course, difficulty with the triple Salchow again today. There will be disappointment there, but they can be proud of how they recovered and continued through the rest of the program. Choreographed by Luca Linotte. Here's their twist. It's in at a level 3. Being awarded three features for that. Looks like Annika was not given the split feature for that twist. This is pretty good. First axle's great. Single axle, that's planned. Now, watch Robert. Just gets a little bit outside the circle, a little crazy, and has to step out. Will result in almost a point lost. These throws, though, are really where this team usually shines. Annika is so confident in the throwing elements. Watch this difficult entry to this group 3 lift. Group 3 means hand to hip. Robert's hand is on Annika's hip. She changes position, grabs her blade. He's on one arm for two revolutions and a dismount. This their choreo sequence. Annika says it's her favorite part. And this team really does have a lot of input on the music process. The long program music this season is their idea. Their choreographer feels like it's an important part of their improvement to be a part of the creation and learning who they are as athletes individually and as a team. Let's see what happens here. They got 121.17 this season at the NHK Trophy. Their personal best is 130.59. But it's 112.56, so a little bit off the pace and that reflects in the mistakes in the program. But they do set the pace. You can see he's still really struggling, isn't he? I hope he's OK.