Tokyo, 24 March, /AJMEDIA
Olympic bronze medalist Kaori Sakamoto of Japan took a comfortable lead over Loena Hendrickx of Belgium and American figure skater Mariah Bell on Wednesday after the short program at the world championships.
Sakamoto’s program, set to music from the film “Gladiator,” featured a triple flip-triple toe loop and earned huge component marks for a score of 80.32 points. That was more than five points clear of Hendrickx, who was seventh at the Beijing Games last month, and nearly eight points ahead of Bell, who finished 11th at the Olympics.
Sakamoto broke up a Russian sweep of the podium in Beijing with her bronze medal. But none of her rivals — gold medalist Anna Shcherbakova, silver medalist Alexandra Trusova and fourth-place finisher Kamila Valieva — is allowed at worlds, with Russian athletes barred from international competition following the invasion of Ukraine.
Valieva is among several Russian skaters performing in an exhibition in Saransk this weekend.
You Young of South Korea was fourth after her short program. U.S. skater Alysa Liu was in fifth place.
The U.S. pairs team of Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier took the lead after the short program.
Knierim and Frazier scored a personal-best 76.88 to lead American teammates Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc by just over a point entering Thursday’s free skate. Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara of Japan were in third place.
“We’re proud of ourselves for continuing to build at each competition for our second season together,” said Frazier, who along with Knierim helped the U.S. win team silver in Beijing – a medal that could become gold pending an investigation into Russian doping. “It takes a lot of time to build in the international circuit. I think we’re just doing our best.”
While far out of contention in 13th place out of 14 pairs, Sofiia Holichenko and Artem Darenskyi of Ukraine might have left the biggest impression on the receptive crowd in France. It took them six days to travel from war-torn Dnipro, first through Romania and then through Italy and Poland, before they finally arrived at the world championships.
“We had a little break after coming home from the Olympics and then the war started,” Holichenko said. “My whole family is in Kiev and there are bombs, explosions every day. Yesterday they were not able to get out all day.”
Holichenko and Darenskyi even changed their program to Ukrainian music in the hopes of inspiring their people.
“It means a lot for us to compete here,” Darenskyi said. “We want to show that Ukrainian athletes, no matter in which sport, are here to fight and that we are strong. We are fighting for our country. Ukraine will win.”
