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From the Olympics Toword Tomorrow
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Kulik sets standard in men's short in figure skating
 Ilia Kulik |
19:00- Start
Ilia Kulik of Russia conjured up a magical performance Thursday, taking the lead after the short program of the Olympic men's figure skating competition in Nagano.
The 20-year-old Moscow native, who sat out the European championships last month due to a back injury, opened his routine with a clean triple axel-triple toe loop combination and went on to complete a flawless performance at the White Ring ice arena.
Kulik, winner of the ISU Champions Series Final held in Germany last December, set the standard early as he skated sixth out of 29 competitors and held onto the lead as reigning world champion Elvis Stojko of Canada and the other medal hopefuls followed.
After nailing the triple lutz and double axel and spinning and stepping to the rhythm of ''Revolution,'' Kulik received five 5.9s and four 5.8s out of a possible 6.0 points for presentation while scoring 5.7s and 5.8s for required elements.
Five of the nine judges gave the Russian first-place votes while the rest were split between Stojko and American Todd Eldredge.
Stojko, the silver medalist at the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics, uncharacteristically lost his balance ever so slightly in his straight line step sequence but edged 1996 world titlist Eldredge for second place.
Young Russian Alexei Yagudin, the world bronze medalist and winner of last month's European championships, sits in fourth place followed by Frenchman Philippe Candeloro.
Japan's top figure skater Takeshi Honda saw his hopes for a medal dashed when he crashed landing the triple axel -- the front end of a planned combination jump -- and never got around to performing the triple toe loop.
The 16-year-old Fukushima native finished 18th while fellow Tohoku high school student Yamato Tamura ended in 15th.
The men's contest concludes with the free skating Saturday while the compulsories of the ice dance competition begin Friday. (Kyodo News)
Results of figure skating men's singles short program Thursday in the 18th Olympic Winter Games at White Ring, Nagano:
1. Ilia Kulik, Russia 0.5 point
2. Elvis Stojko, Canada 1.0
3. Todd Eldredge, U.S. 1.5
4. Alexei Yagudin, Russia 2.0
5. Philippe Candeloro, France 2.5
6. Steven Cousins, Britain 3.0
7. Ivan Dinev, Bulgaria 3.5
8. Dmitry Dmitrenko, Ukraine 4.0
9. Michael Tyllesen, Denmark 4.5
10. Guo Zhengxin, China 5.0
11. Michael Weiss, U.S. 5.5
12. Szabolcs Vidrai, Hungary 6.0
13. Igor Pashkevitch, Azerbaijan 6.5
14. Michael Shmerkin, Israel 7.0
15. Yamato Tamura, Japan 7.5
16. Viacheslav Zagorodniuk, Ukraine 8.0
17. Jeff Langdon, Canada 8.5
18. Takeshi Honda, Japan 9.0
19. Margus Hernits, Estonia 9.5
20. Roman Skorniakov, Uzbekistan 10.0
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23. Lee Kyu Hyun, South Korea 11.5
27. David Liu, Taiwan 13.5
28. Yourii Litvinov, Kazakstan 14.0
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Copyright 1998 The Shinano Mainichi Shimbun