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Yagudin wins his third Stojko takes silver; Italians lead French favorites
Posted: Thursday March 30, 2000 04:57 PM
NICE, France (AP) -- Alexei Yagudin won the men's title -- but barely -- for the third time Thursday at the World Figure Skating Championships with a dramatic routine that projected a range of emotions. Yagudin landed two quadruple jumps -- including one in combination. He added six more triples but was shakey on a few landings and fell once, on a triple lutz, during the routine to Pucini's "Tosca." Elvis Stojko of Canaa finished second while Michael Weiss of the United States was third. It was Stojko's first medal since 1997 when he won his third world title. Yevgeny Plushchenko, with a chance to beat Yagudin, lost his cool and tried to improvise jumps when he faltered on his opener, planned as a quad. He changed his routine several times and fell once, coming in fourth. Yagudin had a chance to crumble a few times in his routine but solid knees and solid nerves held his landings, especially on the opening quad-triple. He had scores of 5.7 to 5.9 with a stray 5.4 by the British judge who was marking low throughout the night but still gave Yagudin first. That left a little room for Plushchenko who had landed two quads easily in the warm-up. But, under the pressure of a possible world title, Plushchenko was the one whose nerves gave way. He doubled his opening planned quad. Tried again and triple it and then went down on his third attempt. Later, after changing at least two more jumps, he added a triple axel-double toe loop-single loop at the end -- far from the impressive quad-triple-double he had done in three competition earlier this season. He dropped to fourth after wining the silver medal last year. Fifth was Chinese Li Chienjiang, who also did a quad. The only skater beside Yagudin to hit two quadruples was Tim Goebel, another American, who did a quadruple salchow-triple toe loop combination and another quad toe loop to finish 11th. Earlier Italians Barbara Fusar-Poli and Maurizio Margaglio stunned the French crowd by moving into the lead in the ice dance over home favorites Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat. Fusar-Poli and Margaglio won a 5-4 majority on judges over the French couple in the original dance portion to a Latin beat. It counts 30 percent after the compulsories. That was just enough to put the Italians ahead entering Friday's free dance. Still it comes down to whoever takes the free dance for the title. The free dance for the remaining 50 percent of the score. Still, the French were surprised to be in second. They heavy favorites for the title and have not lost to the Italians in any section of the competitions throughout the season. Third currently are Russians Irina Lobacheva and Ilya Averbukh -- Anissina's partner when they competed in the former Soviet Union. The Russians are not in the hunt for the dance title, although Russians are doing well in the other three events. Russians Marina Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov won the first final Wednesday to hopefully gratefully end the problem-plagued pairs. In the men's event later Thursday, Alexei Yagudin and his Russian rival and ex-training partner Yevgeny Plushchenko are in a virtual head-to-head competition for the gold medal. American Michael Weiss lies in third with a small chance to win but it is essentially a winner-take-all contest between Yagudin and Plushchenko that would give Russia another gold medal after Petrova and Tikhonov's. The Russians skated to Vivaldi's "Four Seasons," and was nearly perfect in surpassing China's Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo, who led after the short program. The Asian pair, however, had four costly errors in the free, including two-footing a throw triple-salchow and his double of a triple toe jump. French pair Sarah Abitbol and Stephane Bernadis overcame the shock of a razor attack against Bernadis to win the bronze, France's first world pairs medal since 1932. Bernadis, who received an injection of pain reliever a half an hour before the competition, showed no obvious difficulty from the 20-centimeter (8-inch) cut down his left forearm inflicted just a day earlier. The women continue on Thursday with more Russians, Irina Slutskaya and Maria Butyrskaya tied for first after taking their qualifying on Wednesday. Slutskaya beat Michelle Kwan in the talent-packed first group.
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