Olympic champions take the lead.

With the men's and pairs competitions complete, all eyes in Moscow turn to the ladies and the ice dancers. Again I have been without live coverage for most of the event so I will keep my coverage brief and speak only of what I know.

There has been much excitement about Korea's Queen Yu-Na returning to competition for the first time since Vancouver. Yu-Na Kim's new programmes and costumes have been kept almost as secret as Kate Middleton's wedding dress in the run-up to the championships. Kim delivered a steady but not spectacular programme to the music of Giselle. She stepped out of her planned combination jump on the 3Lutz but managed to add a double toe to her flip jump later in the programme. The programme was smooth and easy on the eyes but lacked the fire and performance of her previous 'Danse Macabre' and 'James Bond' short programmes. Many tweeters (no names) felt that she won the short programme based on reputation rather than performance, but there's very little not to like in this programme.

2nd place went to Miki Ando, who showed more effort in her performance to 'The Mission' than I've seen in the past (ie she looked up and performed directly to the audience, which helps!). Russia's Ksenia Makarova sits in third, hiping to emulate young team-mate Artur Gachinski and take home a medal from Moscow.

I can't really comment on the rest as I haven't watched them yet. Mao Asada is down in the rankings after her triple axel was downgraded, but not out of reach of a medal.  Also the US ladies are on track to earn 3 spots to next years championships (for the first time since 2007) which will please the folks at home.

In the Ice Dance, as ever it is the teams from Canton, Michigan leading the way. Virtue & Moir hold a slight lead over training mates Davis & White, but it could go either way in the free with the Americans having clocked up much more competition experience this season. It will be a deligt to finally see the 2nd half of the Canadians free skate though!