Inside Volley Board

Quoted from "king"

Quoted from "Bartek"

Quoted from "king"

Where are the Russian ice skaters ???

From today: Men's Single Skating Euro Championships Short Program

is this the european championchips ??? i need to watch them

Quoted from "Bartek"

22 year old Kim Yu Na came back in Dortmund with the best results of the year and said that She will retire after 2014 Sochi

Olympic champion Kim Yu-na completed her triumphant return to figure skating competition on Sunday by winning the NRW Trophy in Dortmund, Germany with the season's best total score.

Kim overcame one fall in an otherwise assured free skate routine to end her 19-month sabbatical with 201.61 points, including the 72.27 she was awarded for the season's best short program on Saturday.

The 22-year-old Kim was competing in the second-tier competition to secure a place at next year's world championships.

"I'm happy that I could reach my goal today," said Kim, who needed just 28 points from the short program and 48 from the free skate to ensure her participation in London, Ontario, Canada.

"At the beginning of the program my spins were going well but I made one mistake. Afterward I felt shaky but I persevered to the end. I was actually surprised at the score I received. That was unexpected. I think I did my best, the best I could, even though I don't feel I've shown all I can do. But overall I'm satisfied with the result today."

Xenia Makarova of Russia was second with 159.01 points, while Sweden's Viktoria Helgesson finished third at 158.93.

Mao Asada of Japan reached the season's previous best of 196.80 when she won the Grand Prix Final on Saturday in Sochi, Russia.

"If we do end up in the same competition, I think we will each just focus on our own choreography and skating," Kim said when asked about her biggest rival.

Kim, known as "Queen Yu-na" in her South Korean homeland where she enjoys rock star status, hadn't competed since the world championships in Moscow in April 2011, creating unprecedented demand for tickets to see her return at the International Skating Union-sanctioned competition.

The modest 200-capacity venue sold out in two hours, security was drafted in for the first time in six years of the event, and one woman even brought along her poodle.

With indelible poise and sublime grace, Kim started her routine to music from Les Miserables, launching herself fearlessly into jumps and landing with implausible softness.

She landed six triple jumps, a triple Lutz-triple toe combination and four more triple jumps. But she fell on a double toe loop after a lapse in concentration and acknowledged that the rest of her routine was affected despite earning 129.34 points, 22 in front of Japan's Satsuki Muramoto and 29.88 more than Makarova, who placed sixth in the free skate.

"I was caught off-guard because I assumed it was an easy jump," said Kim, who holds world records in the short program (78.50) free skate (150.06) and combined total (228.56) from the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.

"I will focus on just this jump next time. Since this is only a mistake in the first competition [since returning] I think if I focus on it I can improve and not make any mistakes."

Kim sat out the 2011-12 season to mull over her future and announced in July she would return this year and retire after the 2014 Sochi Games.

"After this I'm going to return to Korea and focus on the Korean national championship, preparing for that. Since entry to the Olympics depends on it, I'm going to prepare very hard for it, not just for me but so all the other young skaters in Korea can also gain entry to the Olympics," Kim said.

"About Sochi, it's not too far away, but this season only just started so I'm going to focus on the season first and think about that later."

Kim reunited with two of her childhood coaches, Shin Hye-sook and Ryu Jong-hyun in October, after parting ways with Peter Oppegard, her American coach of two years. She still works with Canadian choreographer David Wilson.

Performances from Dortmund