The NHK Trohpy in Asahikawa, Japan kicked off on Thursday with the Compulsory Dance and the Pairs Short Program. The NHK Trophy is the sixth and last of the qualifying events of the Grand Prix of Figure Skating.

Ice Dance

The Ice Dance competition opened with the Rhumba (Compulsory Dance). World Champions Marina Anissina/Gwendal Peizerat (FRA) had drawn first to skate. The French delivered a good Rhumba and took the lead. "Actually I liked to skate first", said Anissina. "We have never skated first before in competition, so it was a bit unusual. But you're done quickly, and I liked it for the Compulsory Dance." World bronze medallists Margarita Drobiazkov/Povilas Vanagas of Lithuania finished second. They looked confident and had good flow in their Rhumba. "We skated well, but we could have done better", commented Drobiazko. "The ice for the second group was really difficult. There were a lot of traces, and we had to be very careful. The Rhumba has some tricky parts anyway, so it wasn't easy. The ice conditions for the first and for the last couple were unequal." The Lithuanians were the seventh couple to skate. Kati Winkler/Rene Lohse (GER) agreed with what Drobiazko said. "We were lucky to skate in the first group, but it was very difficult for the second group." The Germans are now sitting in third place. "It was a good routine, as we did it in practice", said Winkler.

Pairs

The current World medalists skated one after the other in the last flight but in reverse order from the results at the Worlds. World bronze medalists Sarah Abitbol/Stéphane Bernadis (FRA) presented their "Ninja" program (inspired by martial arts) at high speed. However, Bernadis touched down on the side by side triple toeloop, and their spin was out of sync. Next up were China's World silver medalists, Xue Shen/Hongbo Zhao. Skating to "Allegretto" by Karl Jenkins, Shen barely held onto the landing of the triple toeloop. The lift of the team looked very short, while the triple throw loop was impressive. Last to skate were reigning World Champions Maria Petrova/Alexei Tikhonov. They opened their program to Russian Folk music with side by side triple toeloops, but Petrova's landing was shaky. The team from St. Petersburg completed a triple throw salchow and a difficult lift. The judges were divided between the top three couples. Petrova/Tikhonov took ordinals ranging from four first and four second places, to one third place ordinal to win the Short Program. Shen/Zhao finished second, ahead of Abitbol/Bernadis.

Pair Skaters, Inga Rodionova/Andrei Krukov from Azerbaijan withdrew just after the warm up because Rodionova wasn't feeling well and Vanessa Gusmeroli (FRA) also withdrew before the event started, due to medical reasons.

NHK Trophy continues tomorrow with the Ladies Short Program, Pairs Free Program and the Original Dance.

For further information please contact:

Grand Prix of Figure Skating & Final			NHK Trophy
Aline Bussat Ingwersen, ISU Media Coordinator		Hiroshi Kobayashi, Press Officer
+41 21 612 66 66					+166 63 22 94
E-mail: bussat@isu.ch

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