BEIJING -- World champion Irina Slutskaya picked up where she left off last season with a personal best score Saturday to win the Cup of China figure skating tournament.
The Russian beat junior world champion Mao Asada and 2004 world champion Shizuka Arakawa, both of Japan.
Canada's Emanuel Sandhu won his second Grand Prix event in a week, rallying from fourth in the short program to prevent a Russian sweep. In the ice dance, world champions Tatiana Navka and
Roman Kostomarov performed a dramatic interpretation to "Carmen"
to beat Galit Chait and Sergei Saknovski of Israel.
Maria Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov won the pairs event Friday.
Slutskaya took a big lead after a clean short program on Thursday, then lengthened it with a free program to Flamenco music.
She had six triple jumps and increased her scoring with difficult spins and spirals, which added points under the new scoring system. Slutskaya finished with 196.12 points to better her previous overall best of 192.94 at last year's world championships.
In her first Grand Prix event this year, Slutskaya finished with
125.90 points for the free skate, short of her mark of 130.10 at
the world championships.
Slutskaya won the world title last March in her home town of
Moscow to cap an undefeated season. The year before, her career was
threatened with illness and injury, but she won the 2005 world
title to go along with her 2002 world championship.
She was scheduled to face champion Michelle Kwan in the Cup of
China, but the American withdrew to recover from a strained hip
ligament.
Sandhu rallied with a quadruple jump and two triple-triple
combinations to score 147.56 in the free skate and move to 212.66
overall, qualifying for the GP final in Tokyo next month.
Last week at Skate Canada, Sandhu rallied from sixth to win.
Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland, the surprise winner of the
world championships last March, finished second. Russia's Andrei
Griazev, who led after the short program, dropped to third.
The next Grand Prix event is in Paris from Nov. 17-20.