RUSSIA AT THE OLYMPICS: Figure skating: Kavaguti regrets losing title for Russia

Vancouver (AFP) - Japanese-born Yuko Kavaguti said Monday she was sorry for losing the Olympic figure skating pairs gold for her adopted country.  For the first time since 1960 a team from Russia or the former Soviet Union failed to stand on the top of the podium. "I regret our performance because it was full of mistakes," said Kavaguti, who paired with Alexander Smirnov to finish fourth in the opening Olympic figure skating event won by China's three-time world champions Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo. "It was our worst performance of the season," said 28-year-old Kavaguti, just a month after lifting her first major title, the European championship. "I was very calm before skating today. But I had probably wanted to skate clean so much so that I could not properly do what I should do," she added. Kavaguti, 28, touched the ice and went off balance in the pair's opening element, a throw triple, which would have been a quaduruple if not for a last-minute change. Smirnov, three years her junior, stepped out of a side-by-side double axel midway through their free skate to the music of "Valese Sentimentale" and "On the Blue Danube." They ranked seventh in the free skate segment after their third place in the overnight short programme which had put them only 2.25 points behind Shen and Zhao. Their coach Tamara Moskvina had advised them to open with a triple just before their free skate. "It was a bit difficult to refocus on it," said Kawaguti. As a result, Russia lost the pairs title and Kavaguti closed one chapter in her long journey from her native land. She was branded a traitor in Japan when she changed her nationality in February last year in order to pursue her dream of Olympic gold as Japan is not known for producing world-class pairs skaters. She has lived and trained in Russia since 2003, teaming up with Smirnov in 2006. Asked what she wanted to do now, Kavaguti, a Moscow resident, replied: "All I want to do is go home." Asked whether she could be convinced to continue until her "home" Olympic Games in the Russian resort of Sochi in 2014 when she is 32, she added: "No, I'm not sure." It was a grim night for Russia with their teammates Vera Bazarova and Yuri Larionov falling in their programme and struggling into eleventh position. That Olympic pairs domination has now passed to China was summed up as Bazarova said: "We loved being at such a big competition and seeing the elite skaters from China skate."

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