Fernandez leads, Russians battle for Olympic berth

Spaniard Javier Fernandez scored a personal best in the short programme to keep his title defence on track at the European figure skating championships on Thursday. The 22-year-old outshone his rivals to open up a 6.05-point lead on Russian Sergei Voronov with Czech Tomas Verner in third going into Saturday's free skating final. But the battle for Russia's sole men's berth at the Winter Olympics has been thrown open as national champion Maxim Kovtum is sitting fourth after errors in his routine. The 18-year-old Kovtum is battling 2006 Olympic champion Yevgeny Plushenko for the berth in Sochi after stunning the former three-time world champion to win the national title last month. Veteran Plushenko, 31, is not competing in Budapest with Russia's figure skating federation chiefs making their final selection after the Europeans. Fernandez, who is coached by Canadian Brian Orser, opened with a quadruple salchow and gave a flawless performance to the music "Satan takes a holiday" by Larry Clinton which included a triple axel and triple lutz-triple toe-loop combination. "I believe I can win the gold medal again, but every skater behind me has a chance to steal it," said the Toronto-based skater, who scored 91.56 to better his personal best by 2.76 points. Fernandez blamed his struggles early in the season on his skates. "You can't train well when the skates aren't good. But I went back to my old skates and just kept training," he explained. "I knew that Kovtum had two quads in his programme, but for me one quad was sufficient. "It was all about the overall performance and I went out there and did exactly what I needed." Voronov, 26, who was third at the Russian nationals but has never medalled at a major competition, is sitting second with 85.51 after a clean skate to "Two Guitars", with 2008 champion Verner on 83.51 following his routine to the "Duelling Banjos" soundtrack. Voronov admitted that he had lost 3kilos to help his bid for the Olympic spot. "I try not to think about it (Olympics). I don't even think today was my best skate but I'm pleased I beat the nerves and the worries." Kovtum landed his opening quad-triple toe-loop combination, but popped his second quad jump in his Flamenco routine and is fourth with 83.15, nearly 10 points off his personal best. "It's a big shame because everything else was good," said Kovtum. "For now we have to go forward, tomorrow and the day after are the important ones." Fernandez was a surprise winner of the men's title last year in Zagreb becoming the first Spanish figure skater to medal at an ISU championship and he went on to take bronze at the worlds. Former champions Florent Amodio and Brian Joubert of France are sitting seventh and ninth respectively. Joubert won his first major title when he took the first of his three European gold medals in Budapest ten years ago. But at the age of 29 he admitted that he found it hard to keep up with the younger generation with a short programme which was put together over three days in Russia with coach Nikolai Morozov a week ago. "I think when you change your programme like that a week before the competition it's a bit kamikaze, but we had to do it," said the 2007 world champion, who has not competed in any major event this season. "There's a lot of tiredness. I'm not able to bounce back like before which is a pity," said Joubert. In ice dancing, Italy's Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte hold a lead of just 0.04 on Russia's Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov, last year's silver medallists, going into Thursday's free dance final. Britain's Penny Coomes and Nicholas Buckland are third ahead of Russian dance teams of Victoria Sinitsina and Ruslan Zhiganshin, and Ekaterina Riazanova and Ilia Tkachenko. Source: AFP