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Nearly perfect Plushchenko leads Russian Nationals over Yagudin
Posted: Thursday December 23, 1999 08:51 PM
MOSCOW (AP) - Landing a clean quadruple toe loop while his top rivals faltered, Yevgeny Plushchenko took the lead after the men's short program Thursday in the Russian Figure Skating Championships. Plushchenko, 17, got straight 5.9s for technique and threeperfect 6.0s for presentation in a routine skated to the "Saber Dance" that also included a triple axel-triple toe loop combination. Two-time world champion Alexei Yagudin stepped out of his quad attempt and landed only a triple axel-double toe loop combination to finish second through the short program, worth one-third of the total score. Roman Serov outskated Alexander Abt to place third. Abt two-footed his quad attempt. In the pairs short program, Tatyana Totmyania and Maxim Marinin took the lead, and Maria Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov were second, both of them outshining world champions Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, who have endured a rocky season. Berezhnaya fell on a throw triple salchow and Sikharulidze nearly dropped her on a simple lift, and they got technical marks as low as 5.1. In the ice dance competition, Irina Lobacheva and Ilya Averbukh took the lead after compulsory dance in the absence of the world champions Angelika Krylova and Oleg Ovsiannikov. Krylova is suffering a flare-up of an old back injury and was treated Wednesday at a Moscow hospital. The top three finishers in all the events will earn spots in the Russian team for the European Championship in Vienna in February.
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