Japan's Sakamoto leads women's short program at figure skating worlds

MONTPELLIER, France -- Olympic bronze medalist Kaori Sakamoto of Japan took the first place after the women's short program at the 2022 ISU World Figure Skating Championships, which opened here on Wednesday.

Skating to music from the film "Gladiator", Sakamoto finished a huge double Axel, triple Lutz and triple flip-triple toe to hit a personal best of 80.32 points to take the lead, more than five points clear of Belgium's Loena Hendrickx, and nearly eight points ahead of Mariah Bell of the United States.

"Regarding today's performance, it's actually the first time for me to score above 80, so I am actually very happy about that. I think my performance was very speedy and I was able to land all three jumps, so I think it's probably the best performance that I am capable of doing," said Sakamoto.

With the absence of Russian skaters, 21-year-old Sakamoto landed on the ice at the Sud de France Arena as the title favourite. A five-point lead in the short program should boost her confidence entering into the free skating on Friday.

"All of a sudden I was considered to be the gold medal candidate. In the beginning, because I wasn't really in top form, it was hard for me to try to push myself and I also felt a gap between where I was and where I wanted to be. But over the days my performance started to really pick up and gradually I was able to tell myself it wasn't really the result that counted," she added.

Multiple Belgian champion Hendrickx, who finished seventh at the Beijing Olympic Winter Games, also posted her personal best of 75.00 points to the music of "Caruso".

"I felt really confident on the ice and also my jumps were there, and although [because of] my injury I felt like I performed the best I could and I'm really satisfied with everything I did today," the 22-year-old said.

Later in the pairs short program, which did not feature the top five finishers at Beijing 2022, the United States completed a one-two finish with Alexa Knierim and Brand Frazier taking top spot with 76.88, ahead of their teammates Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy Leduc with 75.85. Japan's Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara finished third with 71.58.

"We're very grateful to be here and to have a chance to do these programs again. Going out and skating well - skating like we do in practice - is very fulfilling. It's a nice way to end the season in the Short Program segment," Knierim said.