体坛英语新闻：Hanyu leads men while French duo wins ice dance

SHANGHAI, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Reigning Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan led the men's short program while the ice dance title went to Gabrielle Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France at the 2015 ISU Figure Skating World Championships here on Friday.

The defending champion Hanyu, performing to Ballade No. 1 op 23 in G minor by Frederic Chopin, hit a clean triple Axel, a triple lutz and triple toeloop, but made some mistake in his quad toeloop. He scored a season best 95.20 points. Spain's 2015 Four Continents champion Javier Fernandez skated flawlessly to rank second in 92.74, while Kazakhstan's Dennis Ten, bronze medallist at the 2014 Sochi Winter Games, came third in 85.89.

"I didn't do well in my quad toeloop," said the 20-year-old Hanyu. "But I'm happy with result. I felt lucky today, and I always felt lucky when I gave a decent performance."

"Actually I have never finished a clean short program since the season," he said.

Hanyu had an accident last time in Shanghai. He had a scary collision with China's Yan Han in warm-ups at the Cup of China in November, he took to the ice for his long program with gauze wrapped around his head and a bandage on his chin.

"I had a surgery which delayed my season for one and an half month. I rushed myself and injured my ankle, so I need to rest another two weeks," he said. "I was really anxious, and I really wanted to get back to my training."

Fernandez said he was surprised about his score. "What surprise me is I didn't get a season best score for a clean short program," he said.

Ten was a little disappointed. "I made a mistake in the short program which I can do well in practice," he said.

China's Yan Han came fifth 84.45. "I was so nervous to compete at home," Yan said. "I hope I can do better tomorrow."

"If Beijing wins the 2022 bidding, I hope I can still skate at that time," he said.

In the free dance earlier Friday, the French duo, winner of the European Championships, scored 112.34 points in the free dance, and finished with 184.28 in total.

"We are still very young, and we feel like we want to go so much further now, not for the medals but for ourselves," said Cizeron, 20, who finished fourth after short dance on Wednesday.

"I think that is what we have always done. We want to improve. We want to get better at what we do and what we love to do," he said.

They finished almost six points ahead of U.S. champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who took second place with a score of 106.87 and 181.34 overall.

Canada's Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje, winners of both the Grand Prix Final and Four Continents, finished third with 106.74 points, and 179.42 overall.

"We gave everything that we could and that is our ultimate goal and what we trained for," Weaver said.

China's Wang Shiyue and Lu Xinyu finished 19th.

Saturday will see ladies' and men's free skate.