Japan’s Shoma Uno continued his strong start to the figure skating season, easily bettering world champion Javier Fernandez in the Rostelecom Cup short program in Moscow on Friday.
Uno, 18, beat his personal best by 5.6 points, tallying 98.59 points, doing two quadruple jumps (putting his hand down on one landing).
The Spaniard Fernandez performed one quad and scored 91.55 points for second place. Max Aaron, the 2015 Skate America winner, fell on his quad attempt and put up 73.64 for eighth. Full results are here.
Uno scored 9.43 points higher than he did at Skate America two weeks ago, when he also topped the short program, albeit with a fall. Uno has won all three of his competitions this season, including beating Fernandez at the free-skate-only Japan Open on Oct. 1, which can be seen as a preseason exhibition.
Uno’s personal best Friday moved him from No. 8 to No. 3 all time in short program scores under the current points system. Only Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu and Fernandez have scored higher.
Later Friday, Russians took the top three spots in the women’s short program -- 2016 World bronze medalist Anna Pogorilaya (73.93), 2015 World bronze medalist Yelena Radionova (71.93) and 2014 World silver medalist Yulia Lipnitskaya (69.25).
Two-time world medalists Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the U.S. topped the short dance with 74.05 points. Russians Yekaterina Bobrova and Dmitry Soloviyev were second at 74.92.
Russians Natalya Zabiyako and Alexander Enbert were the surprise pairs short program leaders with 69.76 points, .25 better than world bronze medalists Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot. Savchenko and Massot both fell on triple Salchows.
Rostelecom Cup concludes with all of the free skates Saturday. A detailed schedule is here.
Uno and Chock and Bates will clinch berths in December’s Grand Prix Final, the second-biggest annual competition, if they hold on to win Saturday. Actually, Uno will clinch with any podium finish.
NBCSN and the NBC Sports app will air coverage Sunday from 10-11:30 p.m. ET.
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