MOSCOW, October 27 (R-Sport) – Fifteen-year-old Russian prodigy Julia Lipnitskaia stunned the figure skating world Sunday by winning her first senior Grand Prix, topping the podium at Skate Canada.
Lipnitskaia performed perfectly in her free skate Saturday night performed to John Williams' Schindler's List, receiving 198.23 points and finishing with a 4.48-point lead over Japan’s Akiko Suzuki.
U.S. hope Gracie Gold led the field in St. John, New Brunswick, after the short program but fell during the free skate and had to settle for third place, finishing 11.58 points behind Lipnitskaia.
“I want every event to go like this,” Lipnitskaia told the Russian figure skating federation website. “During the short program I was shaking, so I had to battle my nerves.”
Lipnitskaia, the 2012 junior world champion, is one of the contenders for Russia's two places in the women's singles event at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, but the final lineup is unlikely to be clear until after the European Figure Skating Championships in Budapest in January.
