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Russians rule Plushenko wins men's event at Nation's Cup
Posted: Saturday November 13, 1999 06:58 PM
GELSENKIRCHEN, Germany (AP) -- Russian Yevgeny Plushenko completed eight triple jumps and barely missed a quad to capture the men's title at the Nation's Cup on Saturday with Russians also taking the pairs. Maria Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov of Russia took the pairs event earlier while another Russian, world champion Maria Butyrskaya, was ahead after the women's short program. Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz won their first event outside of Canada in seven years as they took the ice dance title. Plushenko skated to a Russian folk medley and almost did a quad-triple at the start, slightly two-footing the first part of the jump in the combination. He added seven more triples to score technical mark between 5.7 and 5.9. His artistic marks were better, all either 5.8 or 5.9. China's Guo Zhengxin did the only quad of the evening in coming in second. However he fell on two triple jumps which kept his scores in the 5.5 to 5.7 range. American Matt Savoie, with unusual entries into triple jumps took third. Bourne and Kraatz won with a swing routine to a pair of Harry Connick Jr. vocals after leading from the start. They were heavily favored after world champions Angelika Krylova and Oleg Ovsiannikov withdrew last week due to her back injury. Bourne and Kraatz have been world bronze medalists the last four years but have yet to win anything outside Canada since 1992 when they won a small competition in Oberstdorf, Germany. Since then their victories have been limited to Canadian nationals, Skate Canada and the 1997 Grand Prix final in in Halifax. They bypassed Skate Canada this year. "We got a late start in the season due to Shae-Lynn's knee," Kraatz said. "But now we are looking forward to the Cup of Russia." In their free program Saturday they did snappy steps to Connick crooning. Vocals are allowed in free programs this year. "It's the first time we've done the original and free dance and by the world championships we are looking to have both these program ready to the max," Bourne said. They scored marks from 5.5 to 5.9 with the Canadian judge giving one of the 5.9s. Germans Kati Winkler and Rene Lohse were second with Bulgarians Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviyski third just ahead of Americans Jamie Silverstein and Justin Pekarek, last year's world junior champions. Petrova and Tikhonov won for the second consecutive year here, holding off a spirited challenge by Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier. Petrova and Tikhonov hit all their difficult elements to a long program to Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" including two throw triple moves where she gently landed with arms outstretched. They had marks between 5.6 and 5.8 from all the judges. Seven of the nine judges rated them first. "The ice here is lucky for us," said Tikhonov since this was their first major win before going on to win the European championship. Sale and Pelletier made only one mistake but that was enough to get beat on the technical marks. She fell on a double axel jump but the rest of their routine was clean. The surprise Skate America winners had a graceful program to "Love Story" but it lacked the technical quality the Russians had. They scored between 5.4 and 5.6 for technical and 5.6 to 5.9 for artistic. Third were Chinese Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo. Xue had a bad day, making four mistakes, including losing an edge on two simple moves and stumbling. She also faltered on a jump and a landing from a throw move. She fell and broke her nose in a training crash over the summer. "It's still tender," said Xue who only resumed hard practice three weeks ago. In the women's event Butyrskaya, who upset Kwan at the world championships last March, was in the lead despite not being secure on two of the required elements in a program to a vocal arrangement of Sarah Brightman. For required elements her scores ranged between 5.3 and 5.5. She was more solid on her spins and had better presentation scores, mostly in the 5.7-5.8 range. Butyrskaya, now 27, took both the European and world women's titles last season. At the worlds she became the oldest woman to take a singles title "To win here is not really that important. A win at the Russians nationals in December is more important," Butyrskaya said. "Even though I am world champion, I still have to qualify there and the competition is very tough there." The Russian women's field is deep with a number of world and European medalists competing for three spots. Tatiana Malinina of Uzbekistan, who beat Butyrskaya in the Grand Prix final last year, was in second. The women finish on Sunday. The next Grand Prix meet is the Lalique Trophy in Paris starting on Thursday.
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