French duo wins ice dance

BEIJING, March 23 -- French favorites Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder won the ice dancing gold and Canada's Jeffrey Buttle took a surprise lead in the men's event at the world championships in Goteborg, Sweden, on Friday.

Delobel and Schoenfelder turned in a romantic performance to The Piano soundtrack by Michael Nyman, finishing well ahead of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada in the three-leg event.

The French pair triumphed overall even though Four Continents champions Virtue and Moir produced the evening's highest score in the free dance.

"We really gave our best," said Delobel. "We were under a lot of pressure so it was not easy but I think we performed well. We are happy now."

"It was a very emotional performance and later we felt a lot of stress waiting for the result."

Virtue and Moir trailed in third place going into the final leg but produced a pitch-perfect performance to the soundtrack of the musical Umbrellas of Cherbourg to clinch the silver.

"We are just thrilled, we couldn't be more excited," said Virtue, who has skated with Moir for 11 years. "It has been a great journey. We are so fortunate to have each other."

Russians Jana Khokhlova and Sergei Novitski took bronze with a cool performance to Rimsky Korsakov's Night on Bald Mountain.

In a confident performance to Astor Piazzolla's Adios Nonino, Buttle was the surprise winner of the men's short program to lead ahead of yesterday's final.

While French title holder Brian Joubert and several other favorites made crucial mistakes, Buttle gave a faultless performance and scored the highest technical mark to end on 82.10 points.

That was well ahead of American Johnny Weir, who was second on 80.79 points, with Four Continents champion Daisuke Takahashi of Japan in third on 80.40 points.

"I felt very comfortable today on the ice," said Buttle, who was runner-up to Takahashi at last month's Four Continents championships held for non-European countries.

Former twice world champion Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland was not at his best, finishing fifth behind European champion Czech Tomas Verner.

(Source: Shanghai Daily/Agencies)