(March 26, 2010) – For the third straight day skaters hit the ice in Torino, Italy for the 2010 ISU World Figure Skating Championships. The ice dancers were first up with the original dance competition.

Canadian and Olympic Champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir held onto their first place lead after scoring 70.27 points. They now have a combined score of 114.40. Olympic silver medalists Meryl Davis and Charlie White are close behind with 112.54 points after skating to 69.29 points in the original dance. Performing in front of a home audience were Italians Federica Faiella and Massimo Scali.  They scored 59.16 during the original dance and hold down third place with 100.01 points.

Moir explained how the dance felt different from the performance they did at the Olympics, “it was a little bit different, minus 10,000 Canadian fans in the rink and 33 million across Canada cheering us on. We were ready for it to be a little bit different this week but we are still happy with how the Italian crowd greeted us and we were very happy with the skate.”

Virtue continued with “not sure emotionally or performance wise but for sure technically that felt stronger and more powerful than the Games.”

Canadians Vanessa Crone and Paul Poirier scored a personal best in the original dance bumping them to eighth place. They scored 55.76 in the original dance for a combined score of 89.08.

Crone and Poirier were both pleased with the improvements to the dance since Vancouver, “the original dance was the weakest of our three performances at the Olympic Games.  To improve our score here by nearly seven points means a lot to us,” said Poirier.

“We worked really hard after the Olympics to refine this dance, to work on the movements and polish the edges, so we're really happy with the performance here,” finished Crone.

The ice dance will conclude on Friday with the free program.

The men ended the evening with their free program.  Japan’s Daisuke Takahashi kept his lead to win the title of world champion. His final score was 257.70 with 168.40 points in the free. Patrick Chan scored 159.42 points in the free which was enough to win a silver medal. Chan also won silver in 2009. His total score was 247.22. Brian Joubert of France held onto third spot to win the bronze. He scored 154.04 in the free program for a total score of 241.74 points.

“It felt really good out there tonight.  I finally felt like my training paid off, said Chan.  “I was full of energy, enjoyed myself out there and felt happy at the end of my performance.”  He is already looking ahead to next season when “I hope two silvers will add up to a gold next year.”

Kevin Reynolds from Canada laid down a solid performance to finish in 11th place. He scored 145.38 points in the free for a total competition score of 216.58.

Reynolds thoroughly enjoyed competing at his first world championships. “It was an amazing first experience and makes me want to come back for more next year.  I really enjoyed every second of it.”

The combined placements of Chan (2) and Reynolds (11) equals 13 which would allow Canada to send three men to the 2011 ISU World Figure Skating Championships next year in Japan.

For more information on the event and full results please click here!

Photos by: Gérard Châtaigneau