Ando wins 2nd gold at worlds in Moscow

Japan's Miki Ando won her second world title ahead of Olympic champion Kim Yu-Na . Miki Ando claimed her second gold medal at the world figure skating championships after overcoming Kim Yu-na of South Korea in a duel of exceptional elegance to win the women's title yesterday. The victory by the Japanese skater, who also won at the 2007 worlds, was fitting in a competition that was originally set to take place in her homeland before it was hit by an earthquake and tsunami in late March.
Both skaters' free programs contained languid moves interspersed with moments of power and steely control.
They were within less than half a point of each other going into the free skate and didn't have room to play it safe.
"I was skating for Japan and I never cared about the result. I'm really happy to have a gold medal," Ando said. "I worked hard and I've become a little bit of a stronger skater than a year ago." Ando, skating first to a Grieg piano concerto in the final group of six, opened with a triple lutz-double toe loop.
She didn't falter until the middle of the program, when she stepped out of a double axel and reduced the planned combination triple toe to a double.
But she regained her poise, continued through three more solid triples and on to a double axel-double loop-double loop cascade so surprising that some of the crowd gasped.
Kim, the Olympic champion in her first competition of the year, started even more boldly with a triple lutz-triple toe to a medley of traditional Korean music.
But she quickly ran into trouble, singling two of her next three jumps. She also featured a cascade starting with a double axel, but one of the subsequent jumps was a toe loop instead of a loop, giving the element slightly less value. "I'm just so glad that the competition is over," Kim said.
 
After the Olympics, I was thinking 'Am I going to come back to competition or not? Mentally I couldn't stop thinking Why do I have to do this? I think that was the hardest thing.
But then I felt ready to go and I thought I can do this." Italy's Carolina Kostner rose from sixth place to take the bronze, with a charming program to the dreamy strains of Debussy's "Afternoon of a Faun," marred only by popping one triple.
Last year it was a hard time for me, so it was a big emotion just to finally again just enjoy it," she said. "To be able to get a medal just makes it more special." All of last year's champions entered this year, but with three disciplines completed, none of the defenders have prevailed.
Mao Asada of Japan finished sixth in Moscow after an error-infested short program.
Daisuke Takahashi finished sixth in the men's, overwhelmed in a field won by Canada's Patrick Chan, who set three world records in the process.
Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy won the pairs, with 2010 champions Pang Qing and Tong Jian of China settling for bronze.
 
However, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada were in the pole position to defend their ice dancing gold later yesterday, closely challenged by Meryl Davies and Charlie White of the United States.
Russian spectators longing for a return to the country's onetime eminence in women's skating had something both to cheer and lament.
Alena Leonova, a sore disappointment in the Cup of Russia, nailed seven triples in her high-spirited free program to end in fourth place, less than a point behind Kostner.
But Ksenia Makarova, who had been third after the short program, ended the competition in seventh after a fall in a free program also marred by other errors.