* At the World Figure Skating Championships in Calgary, Canada (through March 26):
- Russian figure skaters Mariya Patrova and Alexei Tikhonov took the bronze in the pairs' competition. The pair placed second in the free skate program Wednesday night but ended up 0.2 points behind silver medalists Dan Zhang and Hao Zhang (186.42 points) of China. Another Chinese pair, Qing Pang and Jian Tongchn (189.20), took the gold. Russia's Julia Obertas and Sergei Slavnov finished eighth.
- Yelena Sokolova, Russia's defending champion and the 2003 world's silver medalist, finished sixth in the ladies' qualifying round Group B with 97.68 points, about 20 points below her personal record of 116.93 points. The two remaining events of the ladies' competition, the short program and free skate, are set for March 24 and March 25, respectively.
* At the $3,450,000 Nasdaq-100 Open tennis tournament in Miami, Florida (March 22-April 2):
- Russian tennis player Vera Zvonareva, world No. 46, advanced into the second round by defeating compatriot Vera Dushevina (48), 6:4, 6:2. Russians Nadezhda Petrova (7), Svetlana Kuznetsova (14), Yelena Likhovtseva (17), and Dinara Safina (20) will make their first appearance at the tournament in the second round
* Russian basketball team CSKA Moscow beat Germany's Bamberg in the fifth leg of the Euroleague tournament's Top 16 stage, 76:64. The Russian champions, currently holding the top spot in Group F with the maximum ten points from the five games, have secured the first place in the group, allowing it to host two matches in the three-leg quarterfinals series
* Four grandmasters currently hold the top spot at the VII Anatoly Karpov international chess tournament being held in Russia's Siberian Khanty-Mansiisk region and featuring the world's leading players. The $13,000 tournament will run through March 28.
Standings after Day 5:
1-4 Aleksei Shirov (Spain), Sergei Rublevsky, Vadim Zvyagintsev, Yevgeny Nayer (all Russia) - 3 points
5-8 Ivan Sokolov (Netherlands), Ruslan Ponomaryov (Ukraine), Yevgeny Bareyev, Alexei Dreyev (all Russia) - 2.5 points
9- Alexander Onishchuk (United States) - 2 points
10 - Viorel Bologan (Moldova) - 1 point
Day 5 results:
Bologan - Ponomaryov - 1:0
Dreyev - Onishchuk - 0.5:0.5
Shirov - Zvyagintsev - 0.5:0.5
Rublevsky - Nayer - 0.5:0.5
Bareyev - Sokolov - 0.5:0.5
* Metallurg Magnitogorsk, the regular stage winner in Russia's hockey championships, the SuperLeague, lost to Lada Tolyatti, 1:2 at home, in the first leg of the best-of-five quarterfinals series.
First leg quarterfinals results (teams listed first start the series with two matches at home):
Metallurg Magnitogorsk (1) - Lada Tolyatti (10) - 1:2 (Lada leads in the series 1:0)
Ak Bars Kazan (3) - Salavat Yulayev Ufa (9) - 4:2 (Ak Bars leads 1:0)
Avangard Omsk (4) - CSKA Moscow (5) - 3:0 (Avangard leads 1:0)
Lokomotiv Yaroslavl (2) - Khimik Voskresensk (6) - 4:2 (Lokomotiv leads 1:0)
The remaining quarterfinals legs are set for March 23, 25 (26, 28 if necessary)
* Russian Cup 2005/2006 soccer quarterfinals first leg results (host teams listed first):
Spartak Moscow - Lokomotiv Moscow - 2:2;
Saturn Ramenskoye - Dinamo Moscow - 3:0;
Rubin Kazan - CSKA Moscow - 1:1
* Basketball teams VBM-SGAU Samara and UGMK Yekaterinburg will face off in the Russian Cup women's final. VBM-SGAU beat Dinamo Moscow, 87:85, and UGMK beat Dinamo-Energia Novosibirsk, 78:69, in the semifinals of the Final Four, being held in the western-Siberian city of Yekaterinburg
