SOCHI (Reuters) – Georgia’s Morisi Kvitelashvili edged Mikhail Kolyada of Russia to win his first figure skating Grand Prix title in Sochi on Saturday, but the Russian’s second-place finish was enough to qualify him for next month’s final.
Skating to a medley of songs by Frank Sinatra, Kvitelashvili fell on his quadruple toe loop but managed to cleanly execute most of the other elements of his free skate to clinch gold with a total of 266.33 points, a personal best.
Kolyada, silver medallist in the team event at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, finished second, less than two points overall behind his Georgian rival. With his performance, Kolyada, who had finished first in the short program on Friday, qualified for next month’s Grand Prix final in Japan.
Japan’s Kazuki Tomono came third with a total of 264.19 points.
The Rostelecom Cup is the last of the six Grand Prix events during the Olympic season before the final on Dec. 9-12 in Osaka.
(Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing by Ed Osmond)
