For the third consecutive year, a Japanese skater has won the women's singles title at the World Junior Figure Skating Championships.
Fourteen-year-old Mao Asada, competing in her sixth international meet, ran her gold medal count to six Thursday night in Kitchner, Ontario in Canada. If she were not too young to meet Olympic eligibility requirements in the sport, she just might threaten to reach the Winter Games podium next February in Turin, Italy.
In December at the Junior Grand Prix final in Helsinki, Asada had become the first woman to land a difficult triple axel in junior competition. She made her triple axel at the world meet look easy. She landed eight triple jumps in all during her four-minute free skate.
Finishing second for the silver medal was another 14-year-old, Yu-Na Kim of South Korea. She becomes the first Korean to win a world championship medal at either the junior or senior level.
Sixteen-year-old Emily Hughes of the United States took bronze. She's the younger sister of 2002 Olympic champion Sarah Hughes.
Some information for this report provided by AP.