Hanyu breaks world record at home GP

RIFU, Japan - Agence France-Presse

Hanyu performs during the men’s short program at ISU Grand Prix. REUTERS photo

Hometown boy Yuzuru Hanyu broke his own short-program world record to lead the figure skating Grand Prix in Japan at an arena that doubled as a mortuary after the 2011 quake-tsunami disaster. Olympic silver medalist Mao Asada led the women’s short program at home, gearing up for her second GP win this year after the Cup of China in Shanghai three weeks ago.

Hanyu landed a clean quadruple jump followed by a triple axel and a triple-triple combination to collect 95.32 points in the short program at the NHK Trophy, the sixth and last leg of the ISU Grand Prix series.
The 17-year-old trumped his previous record of 95.07, scored at the season-opening Skate America event.

“I felt good with all the jumps,” Hanyu said. “I feel much more satisfied than at my last Grand Prix because I could prove that it was not a fluke when I scored so much for the first time.

Skating to “Parisian Walkaways” by Gary Moore, Hanyu hit a maximum level-four in three kinds of spins as a full-house crowd of 7,000 roard him on.