China dominates pairs as France leads ice dancing

GOTHENBURG, Sweden: China's Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao skated a flawless routine to win the pairs short program at the World Figure Skating Championships on Tuesday.

French favorites Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder led the ice dancing after the first leg before the Chinese pair took center stage.

Bidding for their first World Championship gold medal, they sustained near-perfect synchronization in an elegant skate to Maksim Mrvica's Piano Fantasy, scoring a personal best 74.36 points.

"The most important thing is still to come, the free skating," Zhang Hao told reporters, referring to the pairs' final on Wednesday evening.

The Zhangs, who are not related, are best known for the silver medal they won at the Turin Olympics, where Zhang Dan sprained knee ligaments during a routine but managed to complete it.

"Since it is the last competition for this season, we will try our best and give our best performance to the audience," she told a news conference.

Pang Qing and Tong Jian finished fifth with 67.87 points while another Chinese pair Dong Huibo and Wu Yiming came in 11th with 50.49 points.

German disappointment

The Chinese pair led European champions and favorites Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy, who scored 72.00 points after Savchenko messed up her landing on a side-by-side triple toe loop early in the program.

"Our performance tonight was not the best of the season," said Szolkowy. "We are a little bit disappointed about our two little mistakes. Of course we hope to do better tomorrow."

In the ice dancing competition, Delobel and Schoenfelder showed their class by scoring both the highest technical and presentations marks in the opening compulsory dance, an Argentine Tango.

Favorites following the withdrawal of European champions Oxana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin due to injury, they go into the second leg of the competition comfortably ahead of Canada's Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir.

Ice dancing resumes on Thursday with the original dance, followed by the third and final leg, the free dance, on Friday.

America's main hopes, Olympic silver medalists Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto, struggled to finish fifth after a one-point deduction for a fall by Belbin.

"It's just a freak accident, it has never happened before," Belbin said.

"(But) in the competition, it should make it easier. It's always easier to come back from behind."

But Delobel refused to write off her rivals and said the American's could still get back amongst the medals.

"Sure, they lost points but there can always be a turnaround in the situation. Mistakes can happen very quickly even if falls are rare in ice dance and it happened to us at the 2006 European championships in Lyon.

"Five points is a good advantage and if we skate without mistakes for the rest of the competition we can do it but we can't forget about our opponents."

Agencies

(China Daily 03/20/2008 page23)