Breen Suffers First Ballet Skiing Defeat

Two-time defending champion Ellen Breen of West Hills was beaten by Yelena Batalova of Russia in the finals of ballet skiing in the World Freestyle Skiing championships.

Rune Kristiansen of Norway, who discarded notions of retirement after last season, won the men’s ballet qualifier with defending champion Fabrice Becker of France second. Swiss Heini Baumgartner was third.

Breen was unbeaten in World Cup events this season and had already clinched her third consecutive World Cup ballet title. However, Batalova, 30, of Moscow beat her handily on Friday with a score of 28.65 to 26.45 for Breen.

Batalova earned the title with better artistic scores, although both had identical scores for technique. Batalova had artistic marks from 4.5 to 4.9 while Breen had 4.0s and 4.1s.

“I’m satisfied enough,” Breen said. “I was in the hunt. What made the difference was I had to start before the best three of the qualifying.”

Breen had dominated the World Cup ballet scene for three seasons. However, nearly three weeks ago she had to survive a tiebreaker in the eliminations at Lake Placid, N.Y., before coming back to win handily.

Then in Tuesday’s eliminations she stumbled and was only fourth in qualifying.

“I made a big error in the qualifying Tuesday and I paid for it in the final in starting before the first three,” Breen said.

“The disappointment wasn’t today. The disappointment was Tuesday.

“Sitting fourth going into the finals wasn’t good. I knew that scores were going to go up as soon as I finished my run and they did.”