In the pairs preliminary competition Four Continents champions Wenjing Sui & Cong Han of China took an easy lead (quite why the reigning 4CC/World Jr champions/GPF bronze medallists have to compete in the qualifying round is beyond me!) They will join veterans Pang and Tong in the main competition later in the week, Challenging the likes of Germany's Savchenko & Szolkowy and Russia's big 3 pairs teams in the hunt for the medals. See the Pairs qualifying scores here.
In the Ice dance, former world junior champions Elena Ilinykh & Nikita Katsalapov took first place after the qualifying round. Mother Russia has more promising names in Ice dance than I can keep track of, but whether any of them will challenge Virtue & Moir or Davis & White in the near future is another question. See the ice dance preliminary results here.
Good news for Great Britain, their main pairs team (Stacey Kemp & David King) and Ice dance couple (Penny Coombes & Nicholas Buckland) both made it easily through the qualifying rounds with respectable performances. We are a long way from challenging for the medals but good performances here would be a strong building block for future years. Veteran Jenna McCorkell will compete in the ladies preliminary round tomorrow.
As a point of interest, the last time the Worlds were held in Nice (in 2000) it was Alexei Yagudin who took gold ahead of Canadian Elvis Stoiko and American Michael Weiss. Evgeni Plushenko (who won this years Europeans but won't be at worlds due to knee surgery) placed 4th. In the ladies event Michelle Kwan beat the Russians Irina Slutskaya and Maria Butyrskaya. Of those who competed then and are still competing today. Pang & Tong placed 15th in the pairs event and Kevin Van der Perren placed 31st in the men's competition.
Who will add their names to the records of world champions in Nice? Will we have defending champions or new surprise winners?
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