Chan, Radionova finish strongly to win at Cup of China
BEIJING (AP) - Three-time world champion Patrick Chan of Canada rebounded from a subpar short program to capture the Cup of China on Saturday, while Elena Radionova won the ladies event for her first Grand Prix victory of the year.
Chan, who also won Skate Canada earlier this season, was third after the men's short program, but landed a quadruple-triple toe combination, quadruple toe and two triple Axels to finish first in the free skate with a score 196.31.
He had a combined total of 279.72.
"The program felt very methodical," said Chan, whose only misstep was a fall on a quad salchow. "Even after the fall on the quad salchow, I did not panic. I got up and started doing the program as I do it at home."
Jin Boyang of China, the leader after the short program, finished second with a score of 278.54, while Sergei Voronov of Russia was third.
Radionova, who was second after the ladies short program, received 135.15 points for her free skate to finish with a total of 205.90.
The 17-year-old Russian under-rotated on her opening triple lutz-triple toeloop combination and was deducted points on a triple flip, but completed all of her remaining jumps to win her first GP event since last year's Rostelecom Cup in Moscow.
"My performance was not flawless today," she said. "But it was the best performance of the season as for the jumps and the skating overall."
Kaetlyn Osmond of Canada, the leader after the short program, finished second overall with 196.00 points and Russia's Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, the 2015 world champion, was third.
Ashley Wagner of the United States, the 2016 world silver medalist, finished sixth, one place ahead of compatriot Karen Chen.
In the pairs, the new team of Yu Xiaoyu and Zhang Hao won the gold after scoring 131.27 points in the free skate despite a fall by Zhang on a side-by-side triple toeloop. They had a total score of 203.76.
"I made a big mistake on the jump, I think the last time I made that kind of mistake in competition was at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games," Zhang said. "Maybe it was the pressure to skate in front of a home crowd."
China's Peng Cheng and Jin Yang were second and Canada's Liubov Ilyushechkina and Dylan Moscovitch were third.
Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani of the United States won the ice dance competition with 185.13 points after placing first in the free dance.
Canadians Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje were second, followed by Russian skaters Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin.
The Cup of China is the fifth event in the International Skating Union's Grand Prix Series. The sixth and final competition is the NHK Trophy which will be held in Sapporo, Japan, on Nov. 26-27.