Semenenko Third, Dikidzhi Fourth After Short Program in China

Attention, Shenzhen! Grand Prix of China figure skating, men's short program, Friday, Nov. 6 — and two of our skaters are right in the thick of the fight! Evgeni Semenenko scored 99.72 and is third; Vladislav Dikidzhi, 98.86, is fourth. Both compete as neutral athletes.

Who's ahead? Japan's Kao Miura leads with 102.90. His countryman Shun Sato is second with 101.97. Fifth is Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan, 94.87; sixth is Poland's Vladimir Samoilov, 88.21. See how tight it is? From the leader to Semenenko is 3.18 points, to Dikidzhi a little over four.

How ours skated. Semenenko: a clean quad Rittberger, a quad Salchow–triple toe loop combination and a triple Axel; nearly all the non-spin elements received Level 4. Dikidzhi: a quad Lutz–triple toe loop combination, a triple Axel, all three spins and a step sequence at Level 4. But the quad Salchow came up a quarter short on rotation, and the mark for it was reduced. That's the price of four points!

What's next? Everything will be decided by the free skate on Sunday, Nov. 8, at 08:00 Moscow time: places will be set by the total of the two programs. It will be shown in Russia on Okko, by subscription. A detailed look at the chances is in our preview of the day.