World bronze medalist Fumie Suguri led a Japanese monopoly of the top three places after the women's short program of the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships on Wednesday.
Suguri turned in a flawless performance as she got off to a strong start in her campaign to go one better than her runnerup finish last week at the Winter Asian Games.
Shizuka Arakawa, who won the Winter Asian Games gold as the replacement for injured Yoshie Onda, was equally impressive and placed second behind Suguri while Yukari Nakano followed in third.