Russia leaves out Olympic skating champ for Euros

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia has left Olympic women's figure skating champion Adelina Sotnikova off its roster for next month's European championships.

Sotnikova missed this week's Russian nationals with an ankle injury, but there had been speculation her Olympic achievements could persuade the Russian Figure Skating Federation to give her a place.

``The team roster was selected exclusively on the basis of the sporting principle, according to the results of the Russian championship,'' federation president Alexander Gorshkov said in a website statement. ``The level of results displayed at the Russian championship was fairly high.''

The Russian women's team for the Jan. 26 to Feb. 1 event in Stockholm consists of Elena Radionova, Elizaveta Tuktamysheva and Anna Pogorilaya, who finished first, second and fourth respectively at Russian nationals.

Sotnikova, whose only competitive appearance this season came when she won a minor Russian event in October, was listed as the last of three reserves on the federation website. She hasn't skated in international competition since beating South Korea's Yuna Kim to Olympic gold at Sochi in February.

Also missing out is Olympic team event gold medalist Yulia Lipnitskaya, who could only manage ninth at the Russian nationals after a troubled season. The third-place finisher at the nationals, 15-year-old Evgenia Medvedeva, does not meet the minimum age limit to compete internationally.

Olympic pairs gold medalists Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov were listed by the federation as reserves despite not having competed this season as Trankov fights injury. Ksenia Stolbova and Fyodor Klimov, who won silver in pairs at February's Olympics, lead the Russian charge in that event in Stockholm.

Two-time Grand Prix winner and newly-crowned Russian champion Maxim Kovtun is the most prominent of the three Russian men's skaters entered for the European championships, alongside veteran Sergei Voronov and youngster Adnan Pitkeev.

The Russian federation traditionally uses results from the European championships to select its team for March's world championships. That means that Sotnikova and the other absentees from the European championships might not skate competitively again this season.