SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Xiaoyu Yu and Yang Jin of China skated off with the Junior Pairs gold medal at the world championships Thursday. Russias Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov claimed the silver medal, with compatriots Maria Vigalova and Egor Zakroev taking the bronze. Yu/Jin completed both side-by-side jumps, but she fell on the throw triple loop. Still, the Junior Grand Prix Final champions collected level 4 marks for two lifts and a side-by-side spin to score 111.19 points. They totaled 173.77 points. Yu and Jin were silver medalists in 2012. Today we made a mistake, we missed one element. But overall we are pleased that we performed up to our level, Jin said. This was our last year in juniors and we are moving up to the senior level and hopefully will give good performances. Madeline Aaron and Max Settlage of the United States finished fifth place. Nam Nguyen of Canada won the mens short program. Nguyen, 15, earned 72.87 points, with Jin Boyang of China second at 71.51, and Uno Shoma of Japan third at 70.67. The short program felt awesome, said Nguyen, who is coached by Brian Orser, who also works with Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu. I was feeling very relaxed throughout the whole program. I took one element at a time and that really paid off. Nathan Chen of the U.S. had 69.65 points for sixth place.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 23:20:14 +0000