Golden season so far for Weaver and Poje

OSAKA, Japan– Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje of Waterloo, Ont. skated to ice dance gold on Sunday to conclude the NHK Trophy, the sixth stop on the ISU Grand Prix figure skating circuit.

Weaver and Poje have won three international events this season including their two Grand Prix assignments to qualify for the Final December 11-14 in Barcelona.

The world silver medallists totalled 169.42 points skating to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with Ksenia Monko and Kirill Khaliavin of Russia second at 152.54 and Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker of the U.S. third at 146.41.

‘’We are very happy with the result,’’ said Poje.  ‘’There are a couple of things we still want to do better for the Grand Prix Final.  But we feel better about the program and connected with it today.’’

The Canadians made some changes to their free dance after their victory at Skate Canada last month.

‘’There were a couple of mistakes but this performance was a real confidence boost,’’ said Weaver.  ‘’Our experience came through today.’’

On Saturday, Meagan Duhamel of Lively, Ont, and Eric Radford of Balmertown, Ont., took gold in pairs and also qualified for the Grand Prix Final.