China wins men's figure skating gold at Winter Universiade

China's national champion Song Nan took men's figure skating gold medal at the Winter Universiade on Thursday.

The 2010 World Junior Championships silver medalist finished in 220.70 points. Gorshkov Gordei of Russiacame in a distant second at 213.52. The bronze went to Japanese Sasaki Akio with 203.66.

Though he said he was happy for obtaining the gold medal, the 23-year-old Song also said he was "not super-satisfied" with his performance.

"I hope I can continue to improve in the future," he said, adding that every competition in his life represented for him "a very important experience."

A total of 32 athletes took part in the men's figure skating short program but only 24 participated in the free program held at the ice rink of Trento, the capital city of northern Italy's Trentino region.

On the same day, the Czech Republic's Eva Samkova and Austria's Hanno Douschan won the gold medals in the women's and men's snowboard cross competitions.

The Winter Universiade Trentino 2013 counts on a total of 2,700 student-athletes from 52 countries and regions, and runs from Dec. 11-21 featuring 78 events of 12 sports.

With 57 days remaining to the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games, the event, which is staged every two years, acts as a testing ground for some athletes in the build up to their career. Many Olympic champions achieved their first taste for victory on the global stage at a Universiade.

The Universiade is now only second to the Olympic Winter Games, and is the second largest international sporting event behind the Olympics in terms of number of participating athletes and countries represented.

With 130 members including 59 student-athletes, the Chinese delegation was among the largest.

Chinese athletes were competing in 39 events of six sports, namely figure skating, short-track speed skating, speed skating, curling, cross-country skiing and snowboarding.