Ksenia Monko and Kirill Khaliavin won the ice dance title Friday ahead of teammates Ekaterina Pushkash and Jonathan Guerreiro while Adelina Sotnikova and Elizaveta Tuktamysheva went 1-2 in the women's short program. With worlds halfway over, Russia has won three medals, half of those available.
"We are just incredibly happy to have won tonight," Khaliavin said. "We would have liked to win last year, but it didn't happen. Maybe we were not ready for it. But now we did it. We've worked for that the whole season and finally it happened."
Long a figure skating powerhouse, Russia won only two medals at the Vancouver Olympics, none of them gold. Even its streak of pairs gold medals dating to 1964 was snapped. Its showing at the world championships was equally dismal, with Yuko Kavaguti and Alexander Smirnov winning the lone medal, a bronze in pairs.
But with the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia is determined not to have another poor showing.
Monko and Khaliavin, the bronze medalists at last year's junior worlds, weren't perfect Friday. But with 144.16 points, they were almost 10 points ahead of Pushkash and Guerreiro. U.S. junior champions Charlotte Lichtman and Dean Copely were third.
"We wanted to fight for the first place, but more than that we wanted to fight for our work and to show everything what we've improved," Guerreiro said. "This is our second season as a couple and our first season with our new coaches. We wanted to grow as a couple, to show our new technique and image. We were able to show our new style. We are reasonably happy with what we did."
Sotnikova won the Russian title this year but, at 14, is too young to compete at the senior level internationally, ineligible for both the European and world championships. She edged Tuktamysheva for the junior Grand Prix title in December, and the free skate Saturday will be yet another showdown in their budding rivalry.
Sotnikova scored 59.51 points, just 0.91 points ahead of Tuktamysheva. American Christina Gao was third with 56.80 points.
Both Sotnikova and Tuktamysheva did triple lutz-triple toe loop combinations, though Sotnikova underrotated her second jump. But she got the maximum level fours for all three of her spins while Tuktamysheva got only one level four.
"My skating was today was good, but at the same time it was not so good," Sotnikova said. "Hopefully tomorrow I can do everything, and everything 100 percent."
The men's free skate is also Saturday, with American Keegan Messing leading Russia's Artur Dmitriev and Canada's Andrei Rogozine.
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