China's rising star An ranks fifth in Junior World women's short program

BEIJING -- China's figure skating national champion An Xiangyi showed some of her talents to the world as she took a fifth-placed finish in the Junior World women's short program on Wednesday in Calgary, Canada.

Dancing to "Send in the Clowns," the 16-year-old An landed a triple loop, a double Axel, and a triple-triple toeloop combination, as well as a level-four footwork. Though one of her spins was downgraded to level three, she scored 63.91 points and entered the last group of free skate.

"I performed a little better than training," said An, fifth at the Junior Grand Prix in Poland last year. "It's my first world junior championships and I am very nervous, especially after I didn't do well at the 6-minute warm-up."

"I will try to raise the difficulty of my jumps," added An, who started figure skating at the age of three and had won many glories in national competitions.

ISU Junior Grand Prix Final champion Shimada Mao of Japan led the short program with a new personal best of 71.78. Performing to the "Lion King" soundtrack, Shimada landed a triple loop, double Axel, triple Lutz-triple toeloop combination, as well as two-level four spins and level-four footwork.

South Korea's 2022 ISU World Junior silver medalist Shin Jia was second with 71.19, while Nakai Ami, also from Japan, ranked third with 67.28.

Also on Wednesday, China's pair Yang Yixi/Deng Shunyang scored 47.19 to place 10th in the pairs short program.

Sophia Baram/Daniel Tioumentsev of the United States skated to a strong lead and set a new personal best of 66.95 points. They were followed by Oxana Vouillamoz/Flavien Giniaux of France and Australia's Anastasia Golubeva/Hector Giotopoulos Moore.