Petrõkina, crowned European champion before a home crowd back in January, needs to regain proper jumping form within the month to be in with a shot at the upcoming major championships. Her success earlier in the year was bittersweet in that over-training led to a nasty Achilles issue, only fully addressed earlier this month with surgery in Germany.

For the European champion to defend her title and qualify for next year's Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina, Petrõkina, 21, needs to complete at least one major international competition – either the ISU Grand Prix stage in Finland on November 21–22, or at home in Tallinn at the ISU Challenger event in Tallinn a week later.

Petrõkina's coach Svetlana Varnavskaja told ERR the signs of making the latter competition in particular are hopeful.

"We have high hopes of competing here in Tallinn at the end of November. At least that's the goal. The Helsinki GP takes place a week earlier. We'll try everything we can. For now, it's impossible to predict exactly how she'll be able to train and what kind of load she can handle. She's in very good physical and mental shape, and once again, I'll say she's highly motivated, but we really shouldn't rush," Varnavskaja said.

"The most important thing is that I'm very happy because, as you see, I can now skate on both feet again. Last week, I did all my training on one foot. Now my left leg is very strong," Petrõkina herself said, with a smile. "Right now, I'm slowly starting to do jumps — single ones, then maybe I'll try doubles too. Let's see. As the doctor told me, anything that doesn't hurt, I can do, meaning I'll do everything for as long as no pain reappears."

"My main goal right now is to recover as quickly and as well as possible, so that this issue won't return. We're working hard and will see how the leg is getting better. If I can do everything, I will. I'd say that when there's enough well-being, anything is possible," Petrõkina added.

Tuesday's session on the ice, at the Haabersti ice rink, when ERR Sport visited Petrõkina, was her third post-surgery practice skating on both feet, so it is still too early to predict when her leg will allow her to reintroduce more complex maneuvers like triple lutzes and flips into her repertoire.

At least she has her skates back on both feet; up until surgery some training had only been done on the good, ie. left foot.

The problems started after her triumph at the European Championships in Tallinn. Riding a wave of positive emotion, she upped the number of technically difficult jumps in training. "After the European Championships, I started jumping a lot, with this great energy. I didn't really think that a problem could come up. Then I started doing too many lutz jumps off the right foot through the toe pick, and at some point, an issue cropped because I was hitting the ice too hard. Since then, I've been feeling pain, for nine months now," Petrõkina went on.

The lutz involves a skater traveling backward for a long glide while preparing to jump. The skater glides on the outer edge of the left foot, then sets the right toe pick onto the ice and takes off from the right skate's toe pick, landing on the right foot. The jump is performed from the outer edge, and so there is plenty of scope for picking up an injury.

Despite the painful Achilles tendon, the Estonian won the Olympic test event, placed eighth at the World Championships, and secured an Olympic spot for Estonia. Only then did the lengthy and often unsuccessful recovery period at home get underway.

"We tried everything. I was given plasma injections, and things got a little better, but when I started jumping again, the problems came back," she recalled.
Varnavskaja takes up the story. "Then the doctors told us she could rest more after the season. Niina rested, and we thought everything was fine. She went back out on the ice, but her leg started hurting again. The doctors performed many different procedures and treatments, for a lengthy period of time, but nothing seemed to help."

Petrõkina said she tried various non-surgical treatments, including magnet therapy, laser therapy, and shockwave therapy, the latter of which was very painful.

She was still able to push on through the pain barrier to compete in two early-season, lighter program events.

But a surgical solution was needed, and that solution came from Germany. "The situation was such that we turned to Germany, where they immediately made a diagnosis, and just four days later she underwent surgery," Varnavskaja said.

The operation took place on October 9 and involved the troublesome Achilles being extracted from an inflamed sheath, which had restricted movement.
A lot of blood had accumulated there, the skater noted. "Let's just say my Achilles tendon had stuck to the skin."

A no-comment video of Tuesday's training session is below.

The 2026 Winter Olympics start on February 6.

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