Yevgeny Plushchenko, the world champion, tried to reach new heights, but failed to pull off a new quad lutz. But despite that and another fall on a quad toe loop, he took first place against generally uninspiring competition, sais SE-Internet special correspondent Andrey SIMONENKO.

The failure with quad lutz seemingly unsettled him - he fell during another jump, which he usually makes easily. But his technique was excellent enough to surpass the other two Russian skaters - Roman Serov and Ilia Klimkin. Serov was the second, and Klimkin after unsuccessfull free skating program was only the fifth.

Cup of Russia. St. Petersburg

Grand Prix series, fifth stage

Men

Single event standings after free skate programme

1. Evgeni PLUSHCHENKO (Russia)                        1.5 points

2. Roman SEROV (Russia)                             4.5

3. Ivan Dinev (Bulgaria)                            5.0

4. Matthew Savoie (U.S.)                            6.5

5. Ilya KLIMKIN (Russia)                            7.0

6. Yosuke Takeuchi (Japan)                          9.0