Yamaguchi Wins Pro Skating

Kristi Yamaguchi’s bobbles and stumbles were overlooked by the judges as she won the women’s title for the third time in the World Professional Figure Skating Championship at Landover, Md.

Kurt Browning retained the men’s title, besting Brian Boitano for the second consecutive year with two soulful routines that played well to the audience - as well as to the judges.

Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean won the dance title for the fifth time. Elena Bechke and Denis Petrov, who have been runners-up four times, won their first-ever major pairs title.

Wearing a multicolored dress for a romantic artistic program to Puccini, Yamaguchi didn’t even attempt her first planned jump. She later hit a triple toe-loop and a double axel, and scored mostly 9.7s and 9.8s for technical merit and 9.8s and 9.9s for artistic impression.

Ekaterina Gordeeva, in her solo debut in the event she won three times in pairs with late husband Sergei Grinkov, skated elegantly in a blue and white peasant’s dress in her technical program, but failed to complete a triple jump. She placed fourth.

At St. Petersburg, Russia, Irina Slutskaya skated with flair to come back to win the Russia Cup women’s competition. Russians dominated the men’s competition, with Olympic champion Alexei Urmanov overcoming fierce competition from Alexei Yagudin.

In ice dancing, Russians Anjelika Krylova and Oleg Ovsiannikov took the gold with their waltz in the free dance. Irina Lobacheva and Ilya Averbukh, also of Russia, placed second with a bebop-swing program, followed by Americans Elizabeth Punsalan and Jerod Swallow.