体坛英语新闻：Chinese figure skating pair dominates NHK Trophy

TOKYO, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- China's reigning world champions Sui Wenjing/Han Cong claimed the NHK Trophy pairs title after breaking a record of free skating score on Saturday.

Giving a spectacular performance to the music of Puccini's "Turandot", Sui/Han set a free skating score record of 155.10 points, surpassing the previous high of 154.66 set by Tatiana Volosozhar/Maxim Trankov four years ago

With the gold on Saturday plus another one at the Cup of China competition last week, the pair booked themselves a ticket to the ISU Grand Prix Final in Nagoya in December.

"We skated in a relaxed way and performed as we can do in training," Sui said, while her partner Han added that there was still room for improvement and they will try to do better next time.

Russia's Olympic silver medallists Ksenia Stolbova/Fedor Klimov came second while their teammates Kristina Astakhova/Alexei Rogonov placed the third.

Russia's two-time world champion Evgenia Medvedeva won the NHK Trophy women's title, while her teammate veteran Sergei Voronov dominated the men's competition.

Medvedeva gave a dramatic performance to the music of "Anna Karenina" and scored 144.40 points in free skating despite falling on her opening triple flip.

She claimed the gold with an overall total of 224.39 points.

Five-time European champion Carolina Kostner of Italy ranked third in free skating with 137.67 points, but held on to overall second place on 212.24 points.

16-year-old Polina Tsurskaya of Russia pulled off a clean program in free skating and took the bronze with a total of 210.19 points.

In the men's singles, Voronov cruise to victory with 271.12 points, while Adam Rippon of the United States surpassed his opponents to make runner-up and Israel's Alexei Bychenko came in third.

The NHK Trophy is the fourth of the six events of the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating series 2017/18.

Top six finishers in each figure skating discipline will qualify for the Grand Prix Final in December.