体坛英语新闻：Chinese skater Yan stumbles, finishing on bottom after short program in Bordeaux

BORDEAUX, France, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- China's top male skater Yan Han was penultimate among 11 men ahead of the men's singles free skate at the Trouphee Eric Bompard, as he stumbled to skip a quad toeloop in the short program here on Friday.

The 18-year-old performed an otherwise near perfect and passionate routine with just that one element missing, which resulted in 73.18 points with a fourth high skill skating score and a one-point deduction.

Yan, who suffered a hard clash with Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu in warming up at the Cup of China in Shanghai two weeks ago, is still uncomfortable with his left chest muscles but refused to blame the injury as an excuse.

"I just did a terrible job today," commented the former world junior champion. "There's no excuses."

He said the consequences of the Cup of China incident has an impact on his performance more in a mental way, rather than physically.

"From time to time, I felt unsafe in rink and could not let it, " he added. "It bothered me a lot."

"Some times I can't help looking back over my shoulder to check if there's some one else, even when I was skating along in a competition."

Yan's rested for a week after the Shanghai Grand Prix, leaving only less than a week for him to prepare for the Bompard Trouphy, the fifth of six events in the world skating governing body ISU's 2014-2015 calendar.

The only other two Asian skaters here, Olympic bronze medalist Denis Ten of Kazakhstan and Japan's Tatsuki Machida, the world silver medalist, finished 1-2 after the men's singles short program, on respectively 91.78 and 88.70.

Russia's Konstantin Menshov settled for the third place temporarily with a short program score of 87.47.