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Russians crowned after Chinese quit
Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin continued Russia's long successful tradition in the pairs event by giving the hosts the first gold of the world figure skating championships Wednesday in Moscow when they successfully defended their title. They led for Russia 1-2 ahead of Maria Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov, the 2000 world champions, with Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao of China taking bronze after the free skating final. It was the 15th gold medal for Russia in the pairs in the last 20 years. Two-time world champions Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo of China, who had been in third position after the short programme, withdrew before they were due to compete after Zhao aggravated a foot injury. The Russians led both rounds of the competition to wrap up the title with their programme to Sheherazade earning a total of 198.49 points. "I think it was the hardest competition of our lives," said Totmianina, whose career had looked over early in the season after she was knocked unconscious by falling on her head at Skate America. And she had another scare on Wednesday morning when she had a serious collision with Zhang Hao in practice. "Mentally it was very hard for us to skate (because of Shen and Zhao's withdrawal). We had to skate after them and Maxim hadn't even his skates on when they told us we were expected on the ice." Marinin added: "It was a very hard season for us so I'm happy it's over and that everything went well." Petrova and Tikhonov are back on the podium after coming fourth last year. It is their third world medal after gold in 2000 and bronze in 2003. The veteran duo scored 188.21 despite Tikhonov making two mistakes on his jumps and an error on the throw during their routine to Emmerich Kalman's The Circus Princess. "It's great to be second. For a long time we've been fourth," said 33-year-old Tikhonov who is the oldest competitor at this year's worlds. "The Russian audience helped us a lot and gave us so much power." The Chinese, the 2003 world junior champions, scored 180.22 after their routine to Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King," but Zhang Hao finished clutching his back after his earlier collision with Totmianina. "It hurt a lot this morning and then I got some Chinese acupuncture in the afternoon," he explained. "I was nervous and lacking strength for the jumps because of it. We're happy to have won a medal at the worlds but unfortunately we weren't able to perform our best tonight." Meanwhile, Zhao's injury was a blow for the Chinese pairs, the 2002 and 2003 world champions, who lost their title last year to the Russians, but had a successful season with four Grand Prix wins before being forced to withdraw from the Four Continents Championships with the ankle problem. Coach Yao Bin explained: "It's an old injury of Zhao's ankle. After the Four Continents he trained only every other day, and on some training days he couldn't even jump at all. "He wanted to skate today but he only did a double toeloop in the warm-up." Earlier Russia's Irina Slutskaya led Sasha Cohen of the United States and two-time Japanese champion Miki Ando after the women's qualifiers. Defending champion Shizuka Arakawa of Japan and five-time winner Michelle Kwan of the United States are sitting overall sixth and seventh respectively on points ahead of Friday's short programme. Kwan could finish off the podium for the first time since taking her first title in 1996. She also won gold in 1998, 2000, 2001 and 2003. The 25-year-old completed four triples with just one triple lutz-double toeloop combination, and had problems with her spins during her slow-moving routine to Ravel's Bolero scoring 99.96 compared to Slutskaya's 119.08. The American admitted she was finding it difficult to adapt to the new judging system being used at worlds for the first time, which takes into account spins, jumps and stepwork, as well as artistic elements. "I don't know what I did out there, I was terrible, I had too many things to think about," said Kwan.
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