TURIN, Feb. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- Russia continued its winning streak in men's figure skating as Evgeni Plushenko easily claimed the gold medal in the Turin Olympic Games on Thursday.

    Plushenko outclassed the silver medalist Stephan Lambiel of Switzerland by 27.12 points and Jeffrey Buttle from Canada took the bronze medal.

    Plushenko, 23, put out a strong performance to E. Marton's music "The Godfather" that featured an excellent quadruple toeloop and triple toelop as well as a triple axel, triple loop and an impressive change foot combination spin.

    The three-time world champion also showed a triple salchow and earned a new personal best of 167.67 points (85.25 technical score/82.42 component score), totalling at 258.33 points.

    Lambiel, the world champion last year, skated to Antonio Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons", opened with a graceful triple axel, followed by a quadruple toeloop and triple toeloop. He then pulled off a double axel, circular step sequence and an expressive triplesalchow. He pick up 152.17 points in the free skating thus was given the silver with a total result of 231.21 points.

    The 20-year-old Lambiel is the first Swiss man to win the Worlds since 1947 and he pulled ligaments in his right knee two weeks ago.

    Jeffrey Buttle, silver medalist at the 2005 Worlds, earned a total result of 227.59 points, jumping from the six place in the short program to the bronze medal. Enditem