TURIN, Italy -- Irina Slutskaya and Yevgeny Plushenko handed a timely warning to their American and Asian rivals after they restored Russian dominance at the European figure skating championships.

Just two months before Moscow hosts the world championships for the first time, Russians completed a sweep of the medals in Turin's Palavela rink, which will also stage the figure skating event at next year's Winter Olympics.

While Tatyana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin captured their fourth consecutive pairs title, Tatyana Navka and Roman Kostomarov retained the ice-dance crown.

Plushenko and Slutskaya completed the haul in the men's and women's competitions.

For the International Skating Union, the meet proved to be a success as its revamped scoring system was used at a major championship for the first time without a hitch or any controversies.

Plushenko produced the performance of the week with an explosive free skate to capture his fourth European men's title.

However, it was Slutskaya who made history when she won a record-equaling sixth European women's crown despite an error-strewn display including a crash-landing following a triple Lutz.

"Ten years ago I went to my first Europeans and never thought I'd win six titles. Back then I was thinking it would be nice to win one medal someday and now it's like, wow, six gold medals," she said.

The Russians arrived in Turin with high expectations, determined to gain the psychological edge over their non-European rivals by tasting victory in the Olympic venue.

"We have good expectations, for us this is just a general rehearsal for the Olympics," Marinin said even before the competition had begun this week.

Ice dancer Navka repeated the sentiment: "It was important for us to win here as this is the rink where we would like to win the main medal of our career."