NAGOYA, Japan (AP) -- Evgeni Plushenko landed a sequence of jumps combining a quadruple, a triple and a double Saturday to win his second straight singles title at the NHK Trophy figure skating competition.
The 17-year-old Russian star started his 41/2-minute free program with the jumps, all in toe loop, silencing the crowd and then bringing gasps and a loud ovation from them.American Timothy Goebel, famed for jumping three quads in one program five weeks ago, jumped two quads and fell on a third to place second, qualifying for the Grand Prix Final in France in January.
"I've been practicing the sequence for a couple of weeks," said Plushenko. "I'm glad I made it, and believe me, it was more than a 100 percent job."
Goebel had words of praise for Plushenko as well.
"It's really good to see him do it in competition," said Goebel. "I think it will push other people and make the World Championships very exciting."
That competition will be held in Nice, France, March 27-April 2.
Also triumphant Saturday were Maria Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov of Russia, who won the pairs events, and ice dancing winners Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat of France.
The women's singles competition ends with Sunday's free skating.
NHK Trophy is the sixth and last event in the International Skating Union's Grand Prix series. Under a points-scoring system, the series leads to the Grand Prix final, this time in Lyon, Jan. 14-16.
Men's singles skaters also qualified for Lyon are Russian Alexei Yagudin, China's Guo Zhengxin, Canadian Elvis Sojko and Vincent Restencourt of France.
In the pairs event, European champions Petrova and Tikhonov performed an error-free program, moving ahead of overnight leaders Sarah Abitbol and Stephane Bernadis of France, who made a couple of mistakes on jumps.
Dorota Zagorska and Mariusz Siudek of Poland placed third, followed by the Chinese duo of Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo.
For their third Grand Prix title of the season, the Russian pair received a big applause from the crowd but unimpressive scores ranging from 5.3 to 5.7 of a possible 6.0 points for technical merit and from 5.5 to 5.9 for presentation.
Danielle and Steve Hartsell of the United States, the 1997 world junior champions, finished fifth ahead of Canada's Valerie Saurette and Jean-Sebastien Fecteau.
In the ice dancing, Anissina and Peizerat, defending NHK Trophy champions, held on to their overnight lead by receiving scores ranging from 5.6 to 5.8 points for technical merit and from 5.7 to 5.9 for presentation.
In an order that did not change from Friday's short program, The Russian duo of Irina Lobacheva and Ilia Averbukh placed second with Margarita Drobiako and Povilas Vanagas of Lithuania winning the bronze.
The three medal winning pairs have qualified for the Grand Prix final, along with the Canadian duo of Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz, and Italy's Barbara Fusar-Poli and Maurizio Margaglio.