Ice Skating: Torvill and Dean revive the magic

Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean have won their fourth world professional title in Landover, Maryland.

The British pair collected nine marks of 10.0 to take the dance gold at the World Professional Figure Skating Championships.

They beat a strong field that included the 1992 Olympic champions, Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko, and the 1994 Olympic runners-up, Maia Usova and Alexander Zhulin.

Nearly a dozen years after their magnificent Olympic triumph in Sarajevo, Torvill and Dean remain the people's choice. Their every move was cheered by the sellout crowd.

"Always performing before an audience when it counts, you are being judged, to that degree everybody can see a standard or a marker," Dean said. "Then obviously it counts."

n Britain's Steve Cousins finished fifth in the free skate programme for a final placing of fifth in the NHK Trophy figure-skating grand prix in Japan. The event was won by Canada's double world champion, Elvis Stojko.

Results, Digest, page 22