NOTTINGHAM ice dancers Penny Coomes and Nicholas Buckland are on course for their best-ever finish at a European Championships – and could even leave Sheffield with a maiden medal.

Coomes and Buckland recorded a score of 59.78 in the short dance at the Motorpoint Arena to place fourth just behind third-placed Russians Ekaterina Riazanova and Ilia Tkachenko.

The British duo are competing at just their third European Championships together having finished 16th in 2010 and improved two places to 14th last year in Switzerland.

And they look set to comfortably better that while a medal isn’t out of the question either with Riazanova and Tkachenko scoring 61.34 for their short dance routine in Sheffield.

However it is also tight below Coomes and Buckland with Isabella Tobias and Deividas Stagniunas fifth with 59.66 and Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte sixth with 59.62 ahead of Friday’s free dance.

Russians Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov aren’t too far away either placing seventh with 59.49 while Coomes and Buckland’s British teammates Louise Walden and Owen Edwards are 14th.

Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev lead the way with a score of 65.06 but it is also tight at the top with French duo Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat second with 64.89.