CHONGQING, China, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- European champion Adam Siao Him Fa stole the show over reigning world champion Shoma Uno here on Saturday, claiming a back-to-back victory at the Cup of China to secure his spot in the ISU Grand Prix Final next month in Beijing.
22-year-old Siao, the first Frenchman to win the European title in 12 years since Florent Amodio's victory in 2011, turned a somersault on the ice to celebrate after putting on a solid performance of his program set to "Departure", "The Quality of Mercy" and "Refuge".
He reeled off four quadruple jumps and two triple Axels to post a personal best of 207.17 points and rack up 298.38 overall.
The victory came after Siao had triumphed on home ice at the Grand Prix de France in Angers a week ago, making him the current leading man with 30 points on the road to the GP Final.
Siao's impressive performance seemed to have put a lot of pressure on Uno, who came up on the show as the last competitor, but fell while landing his opening jump and upset all his following routines, which cost him a 14-point lead after Friday's short program.
The Japanese talent, 25, narrowly kept second place after totaling 279.98 with a free skating score of 174.73 points, edging Kazakhstan's Mikhail Shaidorov into third with 174.52 in the free skate and 264.46 overall.
Local favorite Jin Boyang, an Olympian and two-time world bronze medalist, slipped from fourth to seventh after free skate, trailing to the eventual champion by 60 points and just one place better than his season opening performance in France. His compatriots Xu Juwen and Dai Dawei finished 10th and 11th respectively.
The best result for the hosts came in the pairs. Three-time Olympian Peng Cheng and her new partner Wang Lei took bronze on their GP debut after finishing third in both short program and free skate and totaling 178.06 points, despite having committed landing errors in both of their two programs' side-by-side jumps.
"We didn't expect to win a medal on our first outing together, but just wanted to show what we've got since pairing up with each other eight months ago," Wang, a 35-year-old former national champion, commented after their own free skate.
"There's still a long road to go for us as newcomers to pairs figure skating," 26-year-old Peng added.
Canadian pair Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxine Deschamps continued to skate well and won the pairs gold with a total score of 201.48, and Italy's Rebecca Ghilardi and Filippo Ambrosini followed with 191.00. The two Chinese pairs of Zhang Siyang/Yang Yongchao and Wang Yuchen/Zhu Lei finished fifth and seventh, with 161.65 and 139.35 points respectively.
Japanese skaters dominated the women's event as Hana Yoshida and Rinka Watanabe shone to make sure of a 1-2 finish after their strong performance on Saturday. Yoshida moved from third to top after leading the free skate with 139.32 points and was crowned on 203.97, with Watanabe settling for silver by an edge of 0.75 points in total, beating overnight leader Loena Hendrickx of Belgium to third, 1.73 points further back.
Only a slight improvement was seen in the three Chinese girls, as Beijing 2022 competitor Zhu Yi, now a sophomore at Peking University, pulled up from bottom to tenth place among 11 skaters, while Chen Hongyi and An Xiangyi, the fifth and sixth skaters after the short program, finished eighth and 11th.
Canada's established ice dancing pair Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier also secured their berths to the season finale on December 7-10 in Beijing after capturing their second GP gold.
Overnight leaders Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha of Canada took silver, and U.S. pair Caroline Green and Michael Parsons were third. China's Chen Xizi/Xing Jailing and Shi Shang/Wu Nan finished last in the nine ice dancing pairs.
The Cup of China is the fourth of six events of the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating series, and the next stop will be the Grand Prix Espoo in Finland. ■
