(Reuters) -Amber Glenn delivered a gutsy performance to retain her ISU Cup of China title, overcoming neck pain to edge out her U.S. teammate and reigning world figure skating champion Alysa Liu in a dramatic
women's singles showdown.
Sitting third after the short program, the 25-year-old Glenn opened Saturday's free skate with a flawless triple Axel and completed five more clean triples to score 141.74 for the program and 214.78 points overall.
Liu scored 212.07 for silver, while Japan's Rinka Watanabe was third (198.63).
Japan's Shun Sato won the men's title, while Georgia's Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava won the pairs, and three-times world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the U.S. breezed to the ice dance title.
Glenn had a scare in morning practice with sudden pain in her neck, and was visibly uncomfortable following the free program.
"I'm really proud of the way I was able to stay in the moment and get my job done out there today," Glenn said. "Maybe it's part of getting older, but (the neck injury) happened mid-run through this morning in practice.
"I just went to turn my head to do my loop-Axel-Axel and I got a sharp pain out of nowhere. It's not anything serious, but it's enough to bother me. I was able to get through the program well enough and just kind of keep my head stable."
Skating to "Paint it Black," Chock and Bates breezed to the ice dance title with a free dance score of 123.81 for 208.25 total points.
U.S. teammates Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik won the silver, while French duo Evgeniia Lopareva and Geoffrey Brissaud rounded out the podium in third.
"We feel like this was a great start to our season and we're excited to get back home and bring more work before Skate America," Chock told Golden Skate.
Chock and Bates next compete at Skate America in Lake Placid from November 14-16.
The 21-year-old Sato, skating to Igor Stravinsky's "The Firebird," landed three quad jumps to win the men's title with a total 278.12 points. Italian Daniel Grassl was second and Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan third.
Metelkina and Berulava scored 217.24 for pairs gold, while Italy's Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii were second and China's Sui Wenjing and Han Cong, the 2022 Olympic champions who recently came out of retirement, were third.
The ISU Grand Prix series next heads to Saskatoon for Skate Canada International from October 31-November 2 in the build-up to the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina next year.
(Reporting by Lori Ewing; Editing by Ken Ferris)
