The New York Times-20080126-Italian Leads- -Brief-

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Italian Leads; [Brief]

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Carolina Kostner held off a strong challenge from two Finnish teenagers to lead the women's competition after the short program Friday at the European Figure Skating Championships in Zagreb, Croatia.Kostner, an Italian, opened defense of her title with a triple flip-triple toe loop combination. She made mistakes on her next two jumps, but her spins and triple-triple gave her an overall total of 59.31 points. Kiira Korpi, last year's bronze medalist, finished with 58.60 points. The Finnish champion Laura Lepisto was third with 56.96.The ice dancing title went to the Russians Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin, who overtook Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder of France.