Browning leads Canadian double

IT WAS another joyous night for the Canadians at the world championships here, with Kurt Browning taking the men's title, the fourth time he has done so, and his great home rival, Elvis Stojko, climbing three places to sieze the silver. The previous night, Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler had taken the gold medal in the pairs.

All nine judges gave it to Browning after a near-faultless programme in which he became Humphrey Bogart in the film Casablanca, dinner-jacket, cigarette and all. It demanded great concentration but he packed in the jumps nevertheless, two of them triple axels. His triple lutz was landed two-footed but done so fast that it was soon forgotten in the pure pleasure that followed.

The Russian, Aleksei Urmanov, a possible threat, turned an ambitious quadruple toe-loop, a new one for him, forward. Stajko avoided such pitfalls but his eight three-rotation jumps, all cleanly delivered, lifted him above the Russian into second spot.

Disappointing was Mark Mitchell, of the United States, who models himself on John Currie. In second place overnight, he failed to hold his triple axel landing and reduced the flip to a double.

For Britain's Steven Cousins it was a disappointing night too. His triple axel was two-footed and he also sprawled on a triple flip, demoting him five places to eighteenth.

The dance contest saw the favourites, Maya Usova and Aleksandr Zhulin, consolidating their lead after the original Viennese waltz, ahead of their colleagues, Oksana Grishchuk and Yevgeniy Platov. With Angelika Krylova and Vladimir Fyodorov climbing above the Finns, Susanna Rahkamo and Petri Kokko, a Russian whitewash looks possible in today's closing free dance.