| 2002 World Junior Figure Skating Championships: Day 6 |
The 2002 World Junior Championships continued in Hamar, Norway, with the Ladies Free Program.
Ladies, Free Program
In the Ladies' event overnight leader Ann Patrice McDonough of the USA went on to win the Free Skating and captured the title. Yukari Nakano and Miki Ando completed a strong showing of the Japanese single skaters by winning the silver and bronze medals.
McDonough had a comfortable lead heading into the final Free Skating, but her day started off badly when she woke up that morning with a sore throat. "I woke up and thought - I'm sick!" the American told the press. McDonough decided to skip the morning practice and rested in her room instead. In spite of her health problems, the 16-year-old delivered a good performance. Skating to "Cinderella" by Sergei Prokofiev and "Romeo and Juliet" by Nino Rota, she landed a triple Lutz-double toeloop combination, a triple loop, four more triples and showed strong spins. She only doubled the toeloop and singled the Axel. McDonough's marks ranged from 5.2 to 5.6 for technical merit and from 5.5 to 5.7 for presentation. She picked up seven out of nine first place ordinals and thus added the gold medal to the silver that she had won last year. However, McDonough did not seem to be too happy when she sat in the Kiss and Cry area and saw her marks. "I just wanted to do my personal best and it didn't come out to what I expected. I wasn't thinking about my final placement", she explained. "I wasn't feeling my best, but fought through and I did what I needed to do."
Nakano skated last and rose to the occasion. The Japanese produced five clean triple jumps, a double Axel and nice spins in her program to "Carnival Overture". The only glitch was a step out of the landing of the triple Salchow. Nukari placed second in the Free Program to win the silver medal. It was her first medal in her third Junior World Championships. The 16-year-old had finished in seventh place in 2000 and fourth in 2001."I did my best, and I'm very happy with the outcome", Nukari said. "It was probably the last time for me to compete at Junior Worlds, and I really wanted to get a medal."
Ando, one of the favorites in the competition, came back from a faulty Short Program to claim the bronze medal. The 14-year-old opened her classical "Swan Lake" program with a triple toeloop followed by a triple Lutz-triple loop combination, although the loop was under-rotated. Ando continued with a double Axel-half loop-triple Salchow combination but fell on the last jump. After this, Ando pulled herself together and completed three more triples. The winner of the Junior Grand Prix Final was competing for the first time at the Junior World Championships and was very excited about her medal. "The level was different from other competitions I've been to. I'm really happy with my medal. Next year I really, really want to come back and I hope to win."
Stephanie Zhang of Australia, who stood in third place after the Short Program, made several errors and dropped to seventh place while last year's champion, Kristina Oblasova of Russia, finished eleventh.
Five ISU Members won medals at the 2002 World Junior Figure Skating Championships. Russia was the nation that took the most with five out of twelve medals. Russia took one gold (Pairs), two silver (Pairs and Ice Dancing) and two bronze medals (Men and Ice Dancing). Japan celebrated a success by winning three medals the singles category, including the Men's title and silver and bronze medals in the Ladies' event. The USA takes home two titles (Ice Dancing, Ladies) and Keven van der Perren won the first medal (silver) for Belgium in the history of the World Junior Championships and China clinched the bronze medal in the Pairs event.
The 2002 World Junior Figure Skating Championships conclude Sunday with the Exhibition Gala.
Results Ladies FPl. Name Nat. Points QB QA SP FS 1 Ann Patrice McDONOUGH USA 2.0 1 1 1 2 Yukari NAKANO JPN 4.6 2 3 2 3 Miki ANDO JPN 5.8 1 4 3 4 Beatrisa LIANG USA 10.2 3 5 6 5 Joannie ROCHETTE CAN 10.6 2 8 5 6 Louann DONOVAN USA 11.8 3 11 4 7 Stephanie ZHANG AUS 12.8 4 2 10 8 Lauren WILSON CAN 14.6 4 10 7 9 Yukina OTA JPN 15.0 6 6 9 10 Carolina KOSTNER ITA 17.4 10 9 8 11 Kristina OBLASOVA RUS 20.6 11 7 12 12 Jenna McCORKELL GBR 24.2 10 12 13 13 Viktoria PAVUK HUN 25.0 5 20 11 14 Asa PERSSON SWE 26.0 9 14 14 15 Roxana LUCA ROM 28.0 8 13 17 16 Susanne STADLMÜLLER GER 28.6 9 15 16 17 Tatiana BASOVA RUS 30.8 5 18 18 18 Kimena BROG MEIER SUI 31.2 6 23 15 19 Magdalena LESKA POL 35.4 13 17 20 20 Ekaterina BURTSEVA RUS 35.4 7 16 23 21 Sara FALOTICO BEL 35.6 8 19 21 22 Svetlana PILIPENKO UKR 36.4 12 21 19 23 Sari HAKOLA FIN 38.0 7 22 22 24 Silvia KONCOKOVA SVK 43.4 11 25 24 25 Madeleine DALENG NOR 50.8 18 31 25 26 Jubilee-Jenna MANDL AUT 13 24 27 Jenna-Anne BUYS RSA 14 26 28 Henna HIETALA FIN 15 27 29 Lucie KRAUSOVA CZE 12 29 30 Kristina MICHAILOVA BLR 15 28 31 Gintare VOSTRECOVAITE LTU 14 30 32 Sun-Bin LEE KOR 16 32 Qingyun WANG CHN 16 34 Christiane BERGER GER 17 34 Martine ZUIDERWIJK NED 17 36 Anne-Sophie CALVEZ FRA 18 37 Diana Y. CHEN TPE 19 37 Zeljka KRIZMANIC CRO 19 39 Teodora POSTIC SLO 20 39 Sonia RADEVA BUL 20 41 Kristiina DAUB EST 21 41 Bianka PADAR HUN 21 43 Melissandre FUENTES AND 22 43 Maria MASTROGIANNOPOULOU GRE 22 45 Rebeca GARCIA ESP 23 45 Ksenia JASTSENJSKI YUG 23 47 Salur DUYGU TUR 24 47 Helena GARCIA MEX 24 For further information please contact: Aline Bussat Ingwersen, or John Inge Vikan, Press Officer ISU Media Coordinator Tel: +47 625 501 25 Tel: +41 21 612 66 66 Cell phone: +47 900 997 08 E-mail: bussat@isu.ch