Canadian ice dancers fifth in Junior Grand Prix debut

GDANSK, Poland –  Brianna Delmaestro of Port Moody, B.C., and Timothy Lum of Burnaby, B.C., placed fifth in ice dancing on Saturday to conclude their international debut at the fourth stop on the ISU Junior Grand Prix circuit.

The Canadian couple only joined forces this past April after skating with different partners last season.  Delmaestro is also a former singles skater.

“We had a pretty good skate, very solid,” said Lum, 18, a year older than his partner.  “The whole day today was just amazing.  We are still learning to skate together but we felt we made a lot of progress this week.”

Brother-sister combo Melinda Meng and Andrew Meng of Montreal took eighth spot.

“It was a very good experience,” said Andrew Meng, 16, two years older than his sister.   “Even though I felt we could have skated better.  We had a couple of good elements including our twizzle and our combinations.  The technical side of our skating is what hurt us.”

Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker of the U.S., took the gold.

In men’s competition, Adian Pitkeev led Russia to a 1-2 finish.  Nam Nguyen of Burnaby, B.C., posted the 12th best score in the free program to climb from 23rd to 16th overall.

“I was attacking more than the short program,” said Nguyen, 15, a two-time junior Grand Prix medallist.  “Still it wasn’t a great score.  I’m going to have to review what exactly happened this week when I get home.”

On Friday, Gabrielle Daleman of Newmarket, Ont., won the bronze medal in women’s singles.

Louis Daignault