Evgeni Plushenko won the Gold Medal.

Plushenko wins Gold

Evgeni Plushenko won his second straight World Championship Thursday night in Washington, D.C.

"It's nicer to win gold the second time around," Plushenko said.

Plushenko came into the competition with a sore left knee and when he woke up Thursday morning it was all red. Plushenko's doctor decided again an injection for pain and instead decided on salve and massage. "It hurts pretty bad," Plushenko said. "There was a lot of pressure. It was hard and I am very tired right now."

Suguri wins Bronze

Fumie Suguri acknowledges the crowd.

Fumie Suguri, from Japan, won her second consecutive World Bronze Medal, but had to wait until the final scores of all three programs were calculated to know she had won. Cohen

"I feel good standing on the podium this year," Seguri said. "I didn't think about the medal much."

Suguri barely edged American Sasha Cohen for third -- the difference being Suguri had an easier qualifying group than Cohen and won it. Cohen was third behind Kwan and Sokolova in qualifying, fifth in the short program and third Saturday night.

 

Totmianina & Marinin
win Silver at Worlds

Naomi Lang & Peter Tchernyshev wait for their scores at the World Championships.

Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin earned a silver medal at the World Championships at Washington, D.C., Wednesday night.

The Russian pairs won their qualifying and short program but were overtaken by Chinese Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao. And it took a perfect program to beat Totmianina and Marinin who have ruled the pairs competitions this season. They had not been defeated since last year’s Worlds Championships.

Totmianina and Marinin won the Grand Prix Final only weeks before the World Championships.

"Today it was a great (pairs) performance," Marinin said. "I couldn’t say we skated badly. Today the Chinese just skated better."

"It is sad," Marinin said of the defeat. "It was hard all through the season. Of course the World Championships are a completely different competition. It is the most important. We were lacking confidence a bit."

Oleg Vasiliev, the pairs coach said, "They are disappointed. They skated cautious, perhaps too careful. There was one technical mistake but overall it was a good performance."

"We did all we could," Marinin said. "We had such a great season."