The current gold medalist of Grand Prix 2015 in figure skating Yevgeniya Medvedeva-Babasyan leads the Russian Cup after the short program, Russian media report.

After a faultless performance, the Russian figure skater of Armenian descent gained 79.44 points, setting a new world record.

Grand Prix bronze medal winner Elena Radionova holds the second place at the Russian Cup (76.69 points), while Sochi Olympic champion Yulia Lipnitskaya comes in third (73.77).

The previous record in the short program belonged to Japanese Mao Asada (78.66).