Hailey Kops and Evgeni Krasnopolsky, Israel’s Olympians for the upcoming pairs figure skating event at the Beijing 2022 Winter Games shared their hopes for the competition.
“I just want to live in the moment and just appreciate everything that’s happening, because I never expected it to happen to me,” Kops said.
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Hailey Kops and Evgeni Krasnopolsky, Israel’s Olympians for the upcoming pairs figure skating event
(Photo: Gettyimages)
Krasnopolsky explained that the pair was able to establish a strong working relationship with each other in just a few months.
“It wasn’t too difficult to (build) the trust, it’s more about getting ourselves together really quick and doing the best we can,” said, who anticipated a strong score for the pair at the Olympics.
”For us, I think we have to be in the finals - it’s not even a question,” the skater said. “Obviously if we can push to top 10 it would be amazing, but as for us, we just need to skate as clean as we can… so we can be (in) the highest place we can be.”
Kops, who practices Modern Orthodox Judaism, said that her participation at the Beijing 2022 Games fulfills a dream she’s held since childhood.
She is returning to the figure skating scene after a period away from the sport, during which she attended a seminary in Jerusalem.
“I did stop skating for numerous reasons… but I actually didn’t really see myself getting back into competitive figure skating until the federation did call me, so it was quite a shock when I got that phone call,” Kops said.