Olympic silver medalists Zhang Dan/Zhang Hao put China on the gold
medal block with the pair-skating championship Friday at the Winter
Universiade in Turin, Italy.
The reigning champions proved the class of their own by
collecting 181.87 points, beating the second-placed Ukraine's
Tatiana Volosozhar/Stanislav Morozov by 31.67 points.
Italian Anna Cappellini/Luca Lanotte cheered the local audiences
up with 165.24 points to win the gold medal of the ice dancing
earlier.
Russian Anastasia Platonova/Andrei Maximishin pocketed the
silver on 161.62 while France's Pernelle Carron/Mathieu Jost scored
160.54 on third.
Belarus' Sergei Novikov won the first biathlon gold medal as he
timed one hour, two minutes and 41.8 seconds in the men's 20km
event to let Belarus lead the medal table by two gold, one silver
and one bronze.
In the women's 15km individual, Ukraine's Oksana Yakovleva
sprinted first with a time of 1:04:49.9.
Austria won their second gold medal when Anna Natalia Rokita
triumphed in the women's 3000m speed skating in 4:12:33.
The silver medal went to Katarzyna Wojcicka of Poland, winner of
the 1500m on Thursday, who was just 0.35 seconds behind.
South Korean Lee Ju-Youn added a bronze to her silver medal from
the 1, 500m, timing 4:13:45.
Ski jump set off at Pragelato with the first men's medals were
awarded to Dmitry Ipatov of Russia who jumped 108 meters long.
The Russian set a record of the Normal Hill of Rivets, beating
the previous 104.5 meters set by Ahonen Vassiliev at the Torino
2006 Winter Olympics.
(Xinhua News Agency January 20, 2007)
