Zagitova wins debut grand prix event at Cup of China

Kolyada takes men’s singles

BEIJING, Nov 4, (RTRS): Russia’s 15-year-old Alina Zagitova rose from fourth to win her grand prix debut event on Saturday, while compatriot Mikhail Kolyada took the men’s singles despite a mistake-marred routine.

Skating to “Don Quixote”, Zagitova, the 2017 world junior champion, had the crowd clapping along to the jump-laden second half of her routine, cleanly landing a triple lutz and triple salchow as well as a sequence of dazzling spins on her way to top an extremely tight field.

With the first three finishers after Friday’s short programme separated by barely a point, Zagitova leapt to victory with 144.44 points for the free skate and a total of 213.88.

Japan’s Wakaba Higuchi held on to second place, snapping out a lightning series of jumps, including a double axel, double toeloop and double loop, Alina Zagitova of Russia performs during the women’s free Skating event of the Cup of China ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating in Beijing on Nov 4. (AFP)

ice on most of his quad jumps and fell on another, although he managed to cling on to second with a total of 264.48 despite ranking only fifth in the free skate.

A disastrous performance by Javier Fernandez to “Man of La Mancha” dragged the Spaniard down to sixth overall from third on Friday. His place on the podium was taken by United States skater Max Aaron with 176.58 in the free skate for a total of 259.59.

In ice dance, France’s two-time world champions Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron became the first ice dance duo to break 200 points when they took gold. Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the US took second and the bronze went to Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev of Russia.