Medvedeva stars as Chinese top pairs

HELSINKI, Finland: Evgenia Medvedeva showed off her incredible jumping skills to stay on track for a second title as China’s Sui Wenjing and Han Cong topped a drama-filled pairs competition at the world figure skating championships on Wednesday.

The 17-year-old Medvedeva — on a winning streak in nine consecutive competitions going back to December 2015 — stuck to her winning formula of a physically challenging short programme packed with jumps in the second half.

The European champion’s score of 79.01 points was just below the world record 79.21 she posted on her way to gold in the Grand Prix final in December.

“It’s working out nicely so I’m going to continue like this,” said the Russian, who leads surprise Canadian duo Kaetlyn Osmond (75.98) and Gabrielle Daleman going into Friday’s free programme.

But in the pairs competition two-time pairs champions Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford of Canada were struggling to defend their crown after placing seventh in the short programme.

Hampered by Radford’s hip muscle spasm the pair delivered an error-strewn performance in the Hartwall Arena in Helsinki to the music “Killer” by Seal.

Sui and Han — silver medallists behind the Canadians at the past two worlds — scored 81.23 points for their programme to Eddy Louiss’s “Blues for Klook”.

They lead Germany’s Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot (79.84) and Russia’s Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov (79.37), who competed despite Tarasova receiving knee stitches after a deep cut in practice.

“She is a hero for all our country and for me,” said Morozov.

Radford also vowed to continue to Thursday’s free skating final.

“We just have another four-and-a-half minutes so hopefully we can get there,” said the 32-year-old. “We thrive in this position,” warned Duhamel. “We can still win the long (programme), it might not get us a gold medal but anything’s possible.”

The Chinese were delighted with their personal best score.

Sui said: “I had surgery last year and a hard time. When I came back to the ice rink I just wanted to enjoy every day.”

Earlier, a blue-clad Medvedeva stole the show as she glided across the ice to the music “River Flows in You” by Lorenzo de Luca.

After an opening camel spin and step sequence she reeled off a triple flip-triple toeloop combination, triple loop and double axel, finishing off in style with a layback spin.