Olympics-Figure skating-Valieva shines as Russians roll into team event lead

By Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber and Julien Pretot

BEIJING (Reuters) -Kamila Valieva delivered a flawless short programme to put the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) in the lead before the final phase of the figure skating team event at the Beijing Olympics on Sunday.

The 15-year-old, who won the European championships last month in a Russian podium sweep, scored 90.18 points, 0.27 short of her own world record with tight spins and used the central part of the rink as she played to the judges.

"Today I did everything possible for what was under my control. I'm very happy that I brought the team the maximum amount of points for the short programme," Valieva told reporters.

ROC are on 38 points going into the final phase, which will see the top five teams skate their free programmes.

It starts on Sunday with the men's free skate, which will not feature defending singles champion Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan, who has not yet been spotted in China.

Yuma Kagiyama will represent Japan.

The United States, who were leading after the first three short programmes, slipped to second on 36 points after Karen Chen finished fifth.

"Now I know how the competition nerves are going to feel like, now I know how the Olympic ice feels with competition nerves. I can better prepare for my next event," Chen said.

Defending champions Canada, who had no real medal expectations, are fourth on 24 points, five behind third-placed Japan.

China are the last team to progress, on tiebreak ahead of Georgia after Zhu Yi suffered a meltdown and finished last.

"I felt a lot of pressure because I know everybody in China was pretty surprised with the selection for the women's singles and I just really wanted to show them what I was able to do it but unfortunately I