Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland, the 2005-06 world champion, and Brian Joubert of France, the current world champion, were second and third. Joubert was the defending European champ.

The 21-year-old Verner skated early in the last group and did enough to hold onto his lead after the short program. He tried a quad, but put his hand down. Then he completed seven triple jumps, all relatively clean.

"I didn't skate my best, but I put my heart into it," Verner said.

Verner slowly rose through the rankings after failing to get past the qualifications at the 2005 world championships that Lambiel won.

"I have had a lot of injuries in my short sports career," Verner said. "I have had good training in the last three years.

"I look forward to being fresh now."

He scored 153.64 points for his free program to "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

His total of 232.67 overall was high enough to all but clinch the title. He had a large enough lead after the short program so that neither Lambiel nor Joubert could catch up without perfect efforts.

But neither had been skating well and each continued struggling in the free program.

"Tonight was very special. You could feel the stress in the dressing room," Lambiel said. "I tried to use that stress on the ice."

It didn't work.

Lambiel make several mistakes. Although he did a quad in combination, there wasn't much else in his Flamenco routine to challenge Verner's score.

Lambiel's score was changed well after the competition ended when the review of the protocol by the referee gave Lambiel additional points for a jump combination. That resulted in a free score of 153.46 and a total of 225.24, more than five points better then he was originally credited with.

However, he still remained in second place.

Joubert skated last and ran out of steam. He nearly fell twice in the second half of his program and bent over in fatigue after he finished. He had 144.20 points in the free and 219.45 overall for third.

'It is difficult. I am disappointed with my third. I have had a lot of problems. I was sick, I had back problems," Joubert said. "I didn't have a good condition to be ready."

After being unbeaten through the 2006-07 season, he won Skate Canada in November, then caught a strength-sapping virus. It caused him to miss the Trophee Bompard in Paris, and Joubert didn't qualify for the Grand Prix final he won the previous year.

Last year, Verner led the short program at Europeans before being overtaken by Joubert. This time, the Czech finished the job.

Verner came in fourth at the world championships last March and was the only skater to do two quads in the free program, including one in combination.

Both Lambiel and Joubert expressed hope they could do better at the world championships coming up in March in Sweden.

" I am thinking about the world championships. I don't like to be third. I like to be first," Joubert said.

Yet Verner had an answer for them.

"Everyone wants to fight for the title. I am the European champion now. I will fight for it too, he said.

Ice dancers Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder, the defending champions, extended their lead earlier Thursday with a lively folk dance.

The French pair led with 103.97 points after the original dance, ahead of Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin of Russia with 102.15. Another Russian couple, Jana Khokhlova and Sergei Novitski, was third with 97.40 points.

"It gives us a good feeling entering the free dance," Delobel said of Friday's deciding event.

For the original dance, Delobel and Schoenfelder had 62.72 points, less than a point better than Domnina and Shabalin. The French led after the opening compulsory round, too.

The leaders stayed closed to their native roots in devising dances to folk/country music.

Delobel and Schoenfelder played a flirtatious couple in a Brittany country dance, using a modern instrumental version of an old French ballad. They used red handkerchiefs occasionally intertwining as they spun and stepped down the ice.

Domnina and Shabalin played the classic Cossack couple with gestures often seen in Russian dance companies: the kicking of heels and bent knees while turning.

Their only mistake was when Shabalin had trouble turning on a one-foot spin — a twizzle — and it cost them in terms of difficulty in the scoring.

"We did it perfectly in the warmup and maybe we were a bit too relaxed," Shabalin said, adding his left knee had recovered from surgery on Dec. 24. "My knee is fine. It had nothing to do with the error on the twizzle."

At the Grand Prix final last month, the French were overtaken by the Russians in the free dance.

"It's very close, as expected, and everything will come down to the free dance," Schoenfelder said.