Day 3- Results/US highlights - 2008 World Juniors




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SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) - Another competition, another title
for Adam Rippon.
The American, who won the junior Grand Prix final in
December and the U.S. junior men's title last month, made
it a clean sweep Thursday by winning the junior world
figure skating title. Rippon finished with 199.90 points,
easily beating Russia's Artem Borodulin (194.77) and Guan
Jinlin of China (189.60).

"It feels great," Rippon said. "I wish I just could have
skated a little bit better, but I'm so happy with the
result."

Brandon Mroz, who was second to Rippon at both the junior
Grand Prix final and U.S. championships, was fifth.

Also Thursday, Emily Samuelson and Evan Bates extended
their lead in the ice dancing competition by winning the
original dance.

Rippon, the leader after the short program, did six
triple jumps, including a triple flip-triple toe loop
combination. He didn't do a triple axel, doing two double
axels instead, but he earned the highest levels - level
four - for all three of his spins, and level threes on
both of his footwork sequences.

His only flaw was on what was supposed to be a double
axel-triple salchow sequence. He had one step too many
between the jumps, so he didn't get credit for the
salchow.

"I was hoping it would be enough, but I didn't think I
had skated well enough to hold the lead after the free
skate," said Rippon, who was the first of the top men to
skate. "But I'm happy with the overall result."

Borodulin opened with a soaring triple axel, but he
stepped out of the second jump on a triple lutz-triple
toe combination. He came back to land five more triples,
and earned a level four for his combination spin.

Samuelson and Bates won the original dance despite a
brief slip by Bates in their side-by-side footwork. The
Americans, who were the silver medalists at the junior
Grand Prix final, made up for the error by getting level
fours for all but one of their other elements. That other
element, a spin, earned a level three.

Samuelson and Bates have 92.95 total points, putting them
more than two points ahead of Vanessa Crone and Paul
Poirier of Canada heading into Friday's free dance. Two
Russian couples, Kristina Gorshkova and Vitali Butikov
(88.98) and Maria Monko and Ilia Tkachenko (88.69) are
next, with another American team, Madison and Keiffer
Hubbell, in fifth place.

"For us, today's performance was pretty good," Bates
said. "We just had one small error that I made, but other
than that we were really happy with how we skated and the
rest of it went pretty well."

Link »
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2008-02-28-564730819_x.htm
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