MOSCOW (AP) — Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu built a 20-point lead in the short program at the Russian round of the figure skating Grand Prix series on Friday.
Hanyu landed a clean quadruple salchow and quad toeloop-triple toeloop combination for 110.53 points. As usual, his fans hurled dozens of Winnie the Pooh toys onto the ice in celebration.
"I'm satisfied with my skate," Hanyu said. "I can't say perfect."
Ahead of Saturday's free skate, Hanyu is looking to win both of his Grand Prix events in a single season, not including the finals, for the first time. He said he struggled with a two-week turnaround from winning his last competition in Helsinki, and trained with less intensity to compensate.
"It was a little strange and it was a little hard to control, but I can say I'm good, whatever, for the short program today," he said. "I don't know about tomorrow but I will try to do my best for tomorrow, too."
Coach Brian Orser said Hanyu took time to get fired up.
"In the warmup he was a little bit lethargic, a little bit slow," Orser said. "He turned things around. I could see, just around maybe 10 minutes before we went out, all of a sudden I could see him just turn things up, turn up the heat, and it was beautiful."
Morisi Kvitelashvili of Georgia recorded his best Grand Prix short program placing of second with 89.94 points.
Experienced Swedish skater Alexander Majorov was third with 82.33, putting him in reach of a first Grand Prix medal in a decade-long senior career.
Mikhail Kolyada of Russia, last season's bronze medalist at the world championships, was in eighth place after an error-strewn skate.
Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov of Russia were on track to retain their pairs gold from last year's Rostelecom Cup after leading the short program with 78.47.
Italians Nicole Della Monica and Matteo Guarise are second on 72.32, with Daria Pavliuchenko and Denis Khodykin third on 69.38.
Russia's Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin lead the ice dance on 74.49 after the rhythm dance, with Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko second for the United States on 69.01 as they aim for a first medal in only their second Grand Prix appearance. Spain's Sara Hurtado and Kirill Khaliavin are third on 66.40.
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