Triple gold for Canada at Skate Canada International
REGINA – Canada won gold in three of the four events on Saturday at Skate Canada International.
Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir danced into the light once again with a golden performance and world record; Kaetlyn Osmond took the women’s title and Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford won pairs.
In ice dancing, Virtue and Moir totalled 199.86 surpassing their previous best of 198.62 set at the 2017 World Championships. They haven’t lost a competition since they launched their comeback a year ago.
‘’We had a couple of little bobbles but recovered really well,’’ said Virtue, from London, Ont. ‘’That’s a testament to our training. We were prepared for anything.’’
‘’We are really emotionally attached with our two programs,’’ added Moir, from Ilderton, Ont. ‘’We understand better now how important that is.’’
Andrew Poje and Kaitlyn Weaver of Waterloo, Ont., won silver with 190.01. Americans Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue scored 189.43, for bronze.
It felt really good,’’ said Poje. ‘’We were happy nervous and excited because there was so little time to prepare but it’s nice to get it out there and know we’ve made the right decision.’’
They recently decided to revive their 2012 long program to the song ‘’Je Suis Malade’’.
‘’About 40 percent of the program is new and we’ve kept the essence of it,’’ said Weaver. ‘’It still feels how it was when we first made it.’’
Carolane Soucisse of Chateauguay, Que., and Shane Firus of North Vancouver were eighth.
In women’s competition, Osmond, from Marystown, N.L., overcame two falls in the free skate to take the gold. She won both the short and long programs for 212.91. Maria Sotskova of Russia took silver with 192.52, and American Ashley Wagner was third at 183.94.
‘’As a package I felt this program was a lot stronger,’’ said Osmond. ‘’I’m excited about the program even though parts of it didn’t go as well as I expected. The boards got in my way on the flip toe and I’m mad that happened.’’
Alaine Chartrand of Prescott, Ont., and Larkyn Austman of Coquitlam, B.C., were 11th and 12th.
In pairs, Duhamel and Radford moved from second after the short for the win with 222.22. Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot of Germany were second at 215.66 and Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres of France remained third at 214.37.
‘’This is a truly emotional skate for Eric and I,’’ said Duhamel, from Lively, Ont. ‘’Last season I don’t think we even came close to 140 points (for the long) because we were struggling so much. This season we want to build and deliver.’’
Lubov Ilyushechkina and Dylan Moscovitch of Toronto were sixth and Sydney Kolodziej of Montreal and Maxime Deschamps of Vaudreuil-Dorion, Que., eighth.
Shoma Uno of Japan took the men’s gold with Jason Brown of the U.S. second and Alexander Samarin of Russia third.
Patrick Chan of Toronto took fourth at 245.70 less than five points from the podium. Nicolas Nadeau of Boisbriand, Que., climbed from ninth to seventh and Keegan Messing of Sherwood Park, Alta., was eighth.
‘’I didn’t feel 100 percent,’’ said Chan, who fell on his opening quad toe jump. ‘’My upper body was a little high in the jumps which means my timing was off. Sometimes you just have to have days like this.’’
Full results: 2017 Skate Canada International
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