Yaroslav Paniot

Yaroslav Vadymovych Paniot (Ukrainian: Ярослав Вадимович Паніот, born 26 December 1997) is a Ukrainian figure skater. He is the 2015 Ukrainian national senior champion and has reached the free skate at four ISU Championships.

Paniot began skating in 2003. In his early years, he was taught by Yuriy Sukholentsev and Oleksandr Zelensky in Ukraine. From 2009 to 2011, he was coached by Alexei Tchetverukhin in Russia.

In January 2012, Paniot won silver in the team event at the Winter Youth Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. He debuted on the ISU Junior Grand Prix (JGP) series the following season, in late August 2012. In February 2013, Paniot took silver at the European Youth Olympic Winter Festival in Poiana Brașov, Romania. He trained mainly in Kiev until 2014.

2014–15 season: ISU Championship debut

During the 2014–15 season, Paniot trained mainly in Irvine, California, coached by Viacheslav Zagorodniuk. Competing in the 2014 JGP series, he finished 17th in Aichi, Japan, having dropped from 7th after the short program, and won the bronze medal in Dresden, Germany, after placing fourth in the short and third in the free skate. Making his senior international debut, he finished 12th at the Warsaw Cup, an ISU Challenger Series event. In December, Paniot won the Ukrainian senior national title; ranked first in the short program and second in the free skate, he finished ahead of silver medalist Ivan Pavlov by less than half a point. He was selected to compete at two senior-level ISU Championships and reached the free skate at both. In January, he finished 16th at the 2015 European Championships in Stockholm, Sweden, having ranked 14th in the short program and 18th in the free skate. In March, he placed 20th in the short, 24th in the free, and 24th overall at the 2015 World Championships in Shanghai, China.

2015–16 season

Paniot finished second to Pavlov at the Ukrainian Championships in December 2015. He changed coaches in January 2016, joining Nikolai Morozov a week before the Ukrainian Junior Championships. In March, he competed at the 2016 World Junior Championships in Debrecen, Hungary and qualified for the free skate by placing 15th in the short. He was 8th in the free skate and 11th overall.

2016–17 season

Competing in the 2016–17 JGP series, Paniot placed 5th in Saint Gervais-les-Bains and Dresden. He ranked 12th at the 2016 CS Golden Spin of Zagreb. At the Ukrainian Championships, he placed first in the short and second in the free, finishing second to Pavlov by a margin of 0.87.

Ahead of the 2017 World Junior Championships, Paniot trained under Halyna Kukhar and Anton Kovalevski in Ukraine. At Junior Worlds, Paniot finished in 10th place after scoring personal bests in every portion of the competition.

CS: Challenger Series; JGP: Junior Grand Prix