Saitama, Japan (Sports Network) - Japan's Yuzuru Hanyu followed his Olympic gold medal in men's figure skating with a world title on Friday, beating countrymate Tatsuki Machida by a slim margin.
Hanyu rallied after a third-place finish in the short program to win the free skate, becoming the first man to win Olympic gold and a world title in the same year since Russia's Alexei Yagudin in 2002.
A dominant free skate score of 191.35 enabled Hanyu to overtake Machida for the title. Hanyu finished with a two-day total of 282.59 points, while Machida was a distant seven points behind Hanyu on Friday and lost the gold medal by just .33 points.
Spain's Javier Fernandez was a distant third with 275.93 points. He was fourth at the Sochi Games, just ahead of Machida.
Russia's Maxim Kovtun finished fourth on Friday, just in front of American Jeremy Abbott. Max Aaron of the United States was eighth, while the top Canadians were Kevin Reynolds in 11th and Nam Nguyen in 12th.
[SportsNetwork.com]
