Olympics Live: Russia takes team figure skating lead

BEIJING (AP) — The powerful Russian figure skating team is in first place in the team competition at the Beijing Games. They got a winning performance from world champion Kamila Valieva and another strong skate from Mark Kondratiuk. The team representing the Russian Olympic Committee has 45 points. That’s two ahead of the U.S., which had a couple of shaky performances from Karen Chen and Vincent Zhou to slip out of first place. The biggest surprise on the second of three days of team competition was Japan. Wakaba Higuchi was second in the women’s short program before 18-year-old Yuma Kagiyama delivered a personal-best score to win the men’s free skate.