NAGANO, Japan (AP) How fitting that it was in Japan where Alexei Yagudin became the first male skater with a 6.0 for technical merit in the short program at a World Figure Skating Championships.

The only other singles skater to do it was Japanese star Midori Ito, also the only woman to do a triple axel at the worlds.

At the 1989 world championships in Paris, Ito scored a 6.0 for the technical portion of the original program, which did not have all the required elements needed today for the short program.

In the free skate at Paris, Ito became the first woman to complete a triple axel in competition. She also was the first woman to do a triple axel at the Olympics.

Tonya Harding is the other woman to do a triple axel in competition, at the U.S. championships.

Ito, the 1992 Olympic silver medalist, was in attendance Tuesday as a TV analyst for a Japanese network.

FLOWER POWER: After Japan's Takeshi Honda finished his short program Tuesday, the hometown fans showed their appreciation by showering the ice with flowers. So many flowers that 12 young Japanese girls were needed to clean up before Russia's Alexander Abt could skate his program. More than 200 flowers came down in tribute to Honda.

Honda helped his cause by skating a clean short program to music from the ballet "Don Quixote."

Other than top finisher Alexei Yagudin of Russia, Honda, who finished fourth at last month's Olympics, was the most popular skater Tuesday at M-Wave.

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ON DECK: The women's qualifiers begin Wednesday with Russia's Maria Butyrskaya the first skater in Group A and two-time defending champion Michelle Kwan of the United States also in that group.

Russia's Irina Slutskaya, the Olympic silver medalist ahead of Kwan, goes later in the day in Group B.

Kwan has lost to Slutskaya all four times they have met this season and seven of the last nine times. The two victories were for world championships, of which Kwan has four.

Olympic champion Sarah Hughes is skipping the event. The activities after the Olympics did not allow her to train sufficiently. Hughes said she wants to compete next season.

QUAD CITY: Eight clean quadruple jumps were landed in the men's short program Tuesday.

Australia's Anthony Liu, France's Brian Joubert and Japan's Takeshi Honda were among five skaters who nailed a quadruple toe loop-triple toe loop combination.

Timothy Goebel of the United States and Frederic Dambier of France both pulled off a quadruple salchow-triple toe loop.

The best was last: Olympic champion Alexei Yagudin delivered a textbook quadruple-triple in his short program and got a record six 6.0s.

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