TNT Sports
Russian repeat
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Published 28/01/2005 at 22:22 GMT
Defending European Champions Tatiana Navka and Roman Kostomarov of Russia staked a new claim on their title Friday, skating with gargantuan grace to earn gold ahead of Ukrainians Elena Grushina and Ruslan Goncharov. French couple Isabelle Delobel and Oliv
Eurosport
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Navka and Kostomarov kept alive Russia's chances of sweeping all four titles in this year's championships.
The couple's triumph gave Russia their third gold medal here after Yevgeny Plushenko claimed the men's crown and Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin captured their fourth consecutive pairs title.
Enacting Puccini's tragic love story Tosca, the couple put in a captivating performance to edge out Ukrainian husband and wife Elena Grushina and Ruslan Goncharov with a score of 214.97 over the three phases of the competition.
Galit Chait and Sergei Sakhnovski lost their bid to capture Israel's first European figure skating medal when they were edged out by Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder for the bronze.
Navka and Kostomarov had easily outclassed the opposition in the first two phases of the competition to take a lead of 5.41 points into the free dance.
A wobble in the first few moments of their dance made little difference to the final outcome as their inventive choreography could not be matched by any of their challengers.
Grushina and Goncharov had to be content with silver after they earned a score of 205.30 for their routine to Vivaldi's Four Seasons.
"We wanted to show the warmth and coldness, love and storm between my partner and myself," said Goncharov referring to their choice of music.
Last year's silver medallists Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviski withdrew before the start of the final due to illness.
Irina Slutskaya could complete a Russian sweep of the medals on Saturday after she edged closer to a record equalling sixth European title with an electrifying short programme.
The 2002 world champion grabbed a commanding lead over holder Julia Sebestyen with a segment score of 65.02.
Illness and injuries meant Slutskaya was unable to defend her crown last year but she easily surpassed her rivals on Friday.
Chasing the record held by Germany's Katarina Witt and Norway's Sonja Henie, Slutskaya buried memories of her injury-plagued 2004 season with a series of soaring triple jumps and imaginative spins which drew rapturous applause from the crowd.
Hungarian Sebestyen was the only other competitor to pull out an error-free display which lived up to her choice of music -- Fire on Ice. But her personal best score of 61.28 was not enough to dislodge Slutskaya from the top and she finished second.
Finland's Susanna Poykio ended the day in third spot.
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