Marko Jevgeni Gaidajenko Explained

Marko Jevgeni Gaidajenko (born 1 November 2001) is an Estonian ice dancer. With his partner, Solène Mazingue, he is the 2021 JGP France II bronze medalist, a two-time Estonian national champion (2022, 2024), and he competed in the final segment at the 2022 European Championships.

Career

Early years

Gaidajenko began learning to skate in 2007. As a novice ice dancer, he competed with Jessenia Tsenkman.

By 2018, Gaidajenko was skating with Darja Netjaga. The two made their ISU Junior Grand Prix (JGP) debut in October 2018, placing eleventh in Ljubljana, Slovenia. During the following JGP season, Netjaga/Gaidajenko finished twelfth in Latvia and thirteenth in Italy. Ranked twenty-fifth in the rhythm dance, they did not advance to the free dance at the 2020 World Junior Championships in Tallinn. They trained in Tallinn and Moscow, coached by Julia Semjonova and Alexei Gorshkov. The team split after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic made searching for a new partner difficult, but Gaidajenko eventually arranged a tryout in France with French ice dancer Solène Mazingue in December 2020. In January 2021, they announced their partnership.

2021–2022 season

Mazingue/Gaidajenko made their international debut in August at the 2021 JGP France II, the second of two events held in Courchevel. There, the team placed fifth in the rhythm dance but rose to third in the free dance to claim the bronze medal overall behind American teams Brown/Brown and Flores/Tsarevski. Their medal marked the first medal for Estonia on the Junior Grand Prix circuit in ice dance since 2011. At their second JGP event, the 2021 JGP Austria, Mazingue/Gaidajenko finished ninth.

Moving up to the senior level, Mazingue/Gaidajenko made their Challenger Series debut in November at the 2021 CS Warsaw Cup. They placed fifteenth at the event. Later in December, they won their first senior national title at the 2022 Estonian Championships before returning to the Challenger Series at the 2021 CS Golden Spin of Zagreb, where they finished ninth. Due to their placement at Estonian nationals, Mazingue/Gaidajenko were assigned to Estonia's berth in ice dance at the 2022 European Championships. On the decision to compete at both levels in one season, atypical in ice dance, Gaidajenko would later note "it's usually more challenging because it's usually absolutely two different rhythm dances, but last season that was the same subject, like a hip hop and street culture. Also, it was both the blues. It's Midnight Blues (senior) and Blues (junior), so it was easier."

At the European Championships, held in Gaidajenko's hometown Tallinn, Mazingue/Gaidajenko set a new personal best in the rhythm dance to qualify to the free dance in 20th place. They maintained their standing in the free dance and finished twentieth overall. Mazingue/Gaidajenko concluded the season at the 2022 World Championships, held in Montpellier with Russian dance teams absent due to the International Skating Union banning all Russian athletes due to their country's invasion of Ukraine. They qualified to the free dance and finished nineteenth.

2022–2023 season

The Russo-Ukrainian War necessitated that Mazingue and Gaidajenko leave their Moscow training location, which had already been inconvenient in terms of visa access. In advance of the next season, they opted to move to train at the Ice Academy of Montreal, widely considered the world's top ice dance training center, under Canadian coaches Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon and Frenchman Romain Haguenauer. They were scheduled to begin the season at the Finlandia Trophy in October, but a week in advance of the event, they had a major training accident. After Gaidajenko tripped while practicing a lift, Mazingue hit her head on the ice, suffering a skull fracture and intracranial bleeding that required surgery.

After months of physiotherapy, Mazingue was allowed to return to the ice in January. Describing her resumption of training later, she said that "the day I finally got on the ice, I started crying because I had so many emotions at once — excitement, sadness, joy. All at once! I cried and hugged Marko and then I knew that nothing can stop me, one day I will become an Olympic champion. Because this accident was crazy, but I came back to the ice and this is my victory."

After resuming training, with Mazingue wearing a protective helmet until March, the team was eventually cleared to compete at the 2023 World Championships in Saitama. Gaidajenko explained that "we made this decision for Solene and for us as a couple. Every person needs a goal to strive for." Mazingue/Gaidajenko placed twenty-eighth in the rhythm dance, with a score of 55.67 points. They did not qualify for the free dance, but Mazingue stated afterward that they went in knowing that was unlikely, and that had they managed to do so, they would have withdrawn beforehand as they were not ready for it yet.

As a result of their low placements in the season, the team lost their financial support from the Estonian Skating Union, and began to fundraise via GoFundMe.

Programs

With Mazingue

Season	Rhythm dance	Free dance
2022–2023	Amado Mio Dónde Estás Yolanda Amado Mio	Evil Morty Evil Morty Theme (For the Damaged Coda)
2021–2022	Clint Eastwood Beggin'	To Build a Home

With Netjaga

Season	Rhythm dance	Free dance
2019–2020	Puttin' On the Ritz Puttin' On the Ritz Puttin' On the Ritz	Love of My Life Death on Two Legs (Dedicated to...)
2018–2019	Take the Lead Tango Mistico	Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet Lux Aeterna A Time For Us

Competitive highlights

CS: Challenger Series; JGP: Junior Grand Prix

With Mazingue

International
Event	21–22	22-23	23-24
align=left		19th	28th	33rd
align=left		20th		20th
align=left		9th		7th
align=left		15th
align=left				bgcolor=gold	1st
International: Junior
align=left		9th
align=left		bgcolor=cc9966	3rd
National
align=left		bgcolor=gold	1st		bgcolor=gold	1st

With Netjaga

International: Junior
Event	18–19	19–20
align=left			25th
align=left				13th
align=left			12th
align=left		11th
align=left	Halloween Cup		7th
align=left			13th
align=left		5th
align=left			7th
National
Estonian Champ.	2nd J	1st J

Detailed results

With Mazingue

2023–2024 season
Date	Event	RD	FD	Total
March 18–24, 2024	2024 World Championships	align=center	33 57.09	align=center	-	align=center	33 57.09
December 16–17, 2023	2024 Estonian Championships	align=center	1 66.33	align=center	1 104.10	align=center bgcolor=gold	1 170.43
December 6–9, 2023	2023 CS Golden Spin of Zagreb	align=center	6 63.86	align=center	6 99.89	align=center	7 163.75
2022–2023 season
Date	Event	RD	FD	Total
March 22–26, 2023	2023 World Championships	align=center	28 55.67	align=center	—	align=center	28 55.67
2021–2022 season
Date	Event	RD	FD	Total
March 21–27, 2022	2022 World Championships	align=center	20 63.97	align=center	19 85.07	align=center	19 149.04
January 10–16, 2022	2022 European Championships	align=center	20 60.36	align=center	20 83.53	align=center	20 142.89
December 9–11, 2021	2021 CS Golden Spin of Zagreb	align=center	8 58.89	align=center	9 88.62	align=center	9 147.51
December 4–5, 2021	2022 Estonian Championships	align=center	2 61.95	align=center	1 93.60	align=center bgcolor=gold	1 155.55
November 19–20, 2021	2021 CS Warsaw Cup	align=center	17 57.83	align=center	14 89.71	align=center	15 147.54

Junior results

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2021–2022 season
Date	Event	RD	FD	Total
October 7–9, 2021	2021 JGP Austria	align=center	11 48.81	align=center	7 82.42	align=center	9 131.23
August 25–28, 2021	2021 JGP France II	align=center	5 54.23	align=center	3 84.00	align=center bgcolor=cc9966	3 138.23