Slutskaya
and Plushenko
win Gold at Cup of Russia;
Weir wins Silver
Nov.
28, 2004
 |
| Irina
Slutskaya |
MCE
skaters won top medals at Cup of Russia in Moscow.
Irina Slutskaya and Evgeni Plushenko won Gold, and
Johnny Weir won Silver.
Ladies
Competition
Slutskaya displayed a nearly perfect performance to
win Cup of Russia Saturday in Moscow.
"I
am very happy with my skating today, first of all
because I finally managed to get together all the
difficult elements I practiced for such a long time,"
Slutskaya said.
The
Olympic silver medalist and 2002 world champion thrilled
her home crowd with a triple-triple-double combination,
Slutskaya
opened her program "Wonderland" with a triple
lutz and followed with a combination of triple salchow-triple
loop-double toe jumps. At the 2001 world championships
she was the first woman to do a triple-triple-double
jump in competition.
Then
Slutskaya added three other triples and no misses
although she scaled a planned triple-double to a double
lutz-double toe loop.
The
audience responded with a standing ovation.
Slutskaya,
who skated the same free program as last year, received
a total score of 121.90 for free skating and a total
of 183.02. That was better than she did in winning
in the Cup of China, her first competition this season
after a knee injury in September.
Slutskaya
has been hampered the past two seasons by illness
and concerns about her mother's kidney disease. She
missed almost all of last season, although she entered
in the world championships, finishing ninth.
"I
was a little bit nervous before getting to the ice,"
she said. "But then I told myself that last year
I had been watching this competition on TV and had
been so disappointed that I couldn't skate. I missed
skating so much last year, and that feeling helped
me to skate here."
With two victories, Slutskaya leads the standings
entering the Grand Prix final in Beijing next month.
Men’s
competition
Evgeni
Plushenko, skating in his first international competition,
won the Gold medal and Johnny Weir the Silver at Cup
of Russia.
It
is Plushenko’s only Grand Prix event while it
was Weir’s third. He won the Gold medal in his
two scoring events and trailed Plushenko at Cup of
Russia. Weir will be the No. 1 ranked skater among
men at the Grand Prix Final in December in Beijing.
Cup of Russia was not a scoring event for Weir. He
won at the NHK and Trophee Bompard events.
Plushenko
won both the short and freeskate, both with new programs.
He debuted his “Moonlight Sonata” in the
short and “The Godfather” in the freeskate
for the first time in international competition.
Plushenko,
who finished with 233.45 points overall – only
0.84 off his record set last year – didn’t
leave any room for anyone to catch him. He opened
with a quad-triple combination, added a triple-triple
and then a triple-double. He stepped out of a triple
salchow, but that was his only flaw and it came late
in the program.
"For
the first start of the season I performed not bad,"
the three-time world champion said. "The task
was set to hit a quad, two triple Axels and all the
rest. I coped with it."
Weir,
the defending U.S. Champion, opened with a triple
Axel-triple toe loop combination and had five other
triples. Skating to “Otonal”, Weir stumbled
on a second try at a triple Axel and late in the program
missed a triple flip. But Weir finished almost 22
points ahead of the third place finisher.
"Tonight's
skate wasn't my strongest," Weir said. "But
I'm very excited to be finished and come in second
to Plushenko."
