Chinese pair win in Gelsenkirchen
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Updated: 2001-11-11 10:25

Chinese pair Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao, world championships bronze medalists, won the ISU ice-skating Grand Prix event in Gelsenkirchen, Germany on Saturday, edging out US tandem Kyoko Ina and John Zimmerman.

The Chinese couple were already leading after the short programme and maintained their advantage through the free programme to see off Ina and Zimmermann as well as Russian former world champions Maria Petrova and Alexei Tichonov, who slipped back from second overnight.

Elsewhere, Russian world champion Yevgeny Plushenko, 19, was leading American Timothy Goebel and China's Chengjiang Li after the individual short programme despite making a small error in a triple axel with the free programme to come on Sunday.