Associated Press 17y

Belbin, Agosto fifth in ice dancing at worlds

FigureSkating, Olympics

TOKYO -- Two-time world champions Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo
made an impressive return to the World Figure Skating
Championships.

The Chinese pair soared to an international best in Tuesday's
short program, giving them the lead over the German pair of Aliona
Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy, with the defending champions --
another Chinese pair -- in third place.

Americans Rena Inoue and John Baldwin were sixth.

In ice dancing, Canadians Patrice Lauzon and Marie-France
Dubreuil took a solid lead after the compulsory dance. U.S.
champions Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto were fifth.

Shen and Zhao were world champions in 2002 and 2003. Because of
injuries, though, they failed to finish the 2005 worlds and missed
the 2006 meet after the Olympics. They barely made it to the
Olympics because he was recovering from a torn Achilles' tendon in
August 2005.

The pair scored well Tuesday with a high-flying triple twist,
skating to Romanza by Spanish composer Salvador Bacarisse. Although
they were slightly off with their spins, they made up for it with
synchronized landings on the triple toe loop jumps.

Shen and Zhao scored 71.07 points, an International Skating
Union best. The previous top score was the 70.52 they posted at the
2004 Grand Prix Final in Beijing.

Savchenko and Szolkowy, the European champions, delivered a
high-powered routine to "Once Upon a Time in Mexico'' full of
unusual entries to jumps and spins to score 67.65.

Last year's world champions, Pang Qing and Tong Jian were next
at 66.75.

Olympic silver medalists Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao, expected to be
in contention for a Chinese sweep, were 10th with 57.00. They
received no points for an element when they overrotated a lift and
had two points taken away in other deductions.

"We were a bit sick, had a cold and therefore our performance
wasn't so good,'' Zhang Dan said.

They led after the short program at Calgary last year but
dropped to second. But they are most remembered for the horrible
fall at Turin where she fell in a split on a throw quad salchow and
had to stop for a few moments before continuing.

Inoue, a former Japanese singles champion, fell on a throw
triple axel.

"Rena was ecstatic to be in front of her home crowd. I saw how
comfortable she was,'' Baldwin said.

American champions Brooke Castile and Ben Okolski were 14th with
54.51 points. Castile only decided to compete after warming up.

"I have the stomach flu pretty bad and a fever but it was my
goal to get through that program and compete, especially since it
being our first worlds and it was important we get seen,'' she
said. "Hopefully I will feel better tomorrow.''

In the ice dance, Dubreuil and Lauzon scored 38.96 points in the
Rhumba, more than a point and a half over last year's world
champions, Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviski of Bulgaria, who were
second with 37.42.

But behind them -- Oksana Domina and Maxim Shalbalin of Russia,
Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder of France and Belbin and
Agosto -- were all bunched close behind.

The Russians had 37.29, the French had 37.20 and Belbin and
Agosto had 37.17.

Belbin and Agosto, Olympic silver medalists but just third in
the worlds, would like to forget the last time they did the Rhumba
in Asia.

"The first time we did the Rhumba this season was at the Cup of
China and we did our worst compulsory dance performance there,''
Belbin said.

"It has been a dance we have worked really hard on for the past
month or so and we wanted to really improve on how we skated it in
China,'' Agosto said.

Although Belbin and Agosto won at the U.S. Championships in
January, they wanted to change their appearance. So Belbin, for
years noted as a blonde, came out as a brunette.

"It was my natural hair color anyway,'' Belbin said. "It is a
little more serious look, a little more intensity.''

The pairs free skate is Wednesday, the first final to be
decided. The men's short program is earlier Wednesday, featuring
two-time defending champion Stephane Lambiel, American Evan
Lysacek, France's Brian Joubert and Japan's Daisuke Takahashi and
Nobunari Oda.

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