Nathan Chen holds off Yuzuru Hanyu at Rostelecom Cup
Canada's Piper Gillies, Paul Poirier finish 4th in ice dance competition
Nathan Chen's technique trumped Yuzuru Hanyu's superiority in program components to win the men's event at the Rostelecom Cup in Moscow on Saturday, the first leg of this year's six Grand Prix figure skating competitions.
Ottawa native Nam Nguyen finished seventh overall with 238.45 points.
"I'm disappointed,'' said Nguyen. ''I was hoping to put in a really good performance. I need to go back and work out the kinks and come back feeling 100 per cent confident.''
Chen, the US national champion, reeled off four quads including a spectacular opening quad Lutz-triple toe opening combination and a quad-double-double cascade in the second half of the free skate Saturday. Hanyu did three quads, but won the free skate segment with a six-point advantage on components.
However, Chen was too far ahead after Friday's short program.
"The beginning half of my program, I was really happy with. The quads I did relatively well...then in the second half I got a bit tired," Chen said,
Hanyu, the Olympic champion, said he needs to get more rotation on his jumps.
"I realize again how important it is to practice more, and in skating each element is so important and I just need to perform each element cleanly," the Japanese skater said.
Russia's Mikhail Kolyada won bronze, ahead of fourth-place compatriot Dmitri Aliev, who fell three times in the free skate.
Medvedeva continues winning ways
Evgenia Medvedeva stretched her streak of Grand Prix golds to five, outdistancing Olympic bronze medallist Carolina Kostner of Italy despite falling on a double axel late in her free program.
Wakada Higuchi of Japan won the women's bronze.
Medvedeva's aesthetically adventurous free skate to the soundtrack of Anna Karenina, ending with the whistle of the train that killed the heroine, earned the Russian higher program component scores than Kostner's more-conventional floating to Debussy's "Afternoon of a Faun."
Although Kostner landed all of her jumps cleanly, Medvedeva was a bit more ambitious athletically, opening with a triple-triple compared with the Italian's triple-double.
Since 2015, Medvedeva has medaled in every one of her Grand Prix appearances for six golds and one silver. Of her fall on Saturday, she said "I allowed myself to let my joy out a little too early."
Kostner skated with assurance despite being in the high-pressure last slot, coming directly after Medvedeva.
"I felt the warmth of the audience helped me through it, and there are a lot of other things I can improve," she said. "To start the Grand Prix season with such a great performance is very special and I'm very excited."
Canada's Gillies, Poirier finish 4th
American brother-sister duo Maia and Alex Shibutani won the ice dancing event, placing first in both the short and free dances. Two Russian couples took silver and bronze, respectively: Ekaterina Bobrova/Dmitri Soloviev and Alexandra Stepanova/Ivan Bukin.
"There was a lot of anticipation for us heading into this week...We're very proud of the work that we've done and this was a great start to our season," Alex Shibutani said.
Piper Gillies and Paul Poirier of Canada were fourth.
"We did what we needed to do here," said Gilles. "It's a good start for us."
"This is the start of a marathon," added Poirier, about this Olympic season. "We want to make sure we are peaking at the right time."
Russia sweeps pairs competition
Russians took all of the spots on the pairs podium, led by Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov whose high-spirited free skate opened with a soaring triple twist and included two long-distance throw triples. Their overall finish was some 20 points ahead of Olympic silver medallists Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov, who were plagued by two Stolbova falls.
Kristina Astakhova and Alexei Rogonov won bronze. Canadians Julianne Seguin and Charlie Bilodeau were fifth.
"We left a lot of points on the table," said Séguin. "Still it's a good start. We had a solid short program and our long just needs some tweaking and more performance mileage."
The pair made mistakes on both side-by-side jumps.
"There was some nervousness," said Bilodeau. "We had some issues in training this week and that can affect your confidence."
CBC Sports will broadcast all the action from Moscow, continuing on Sunday with the gala event.
With files from CBC Sports