Gilles and Poirier climb to fourth at Skate America
LAKE PLACID – Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Toronto climbed from fifth after the short dance to fourth overall on Sunday to conclude Skate America, the seventh stop on the ISU Grand Prix figure skating circuit.
Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani of the U.S. took the ice dance gold with 194.25 points with Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte of Italy second at 181.63 and Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov of Russia third at 176.53.
Gilles and Poirier followed at 166.54.
‘’We didn’t let a disappointing short program get us down today,’’ said Gilles about the free dance. ‘’We feel a lot more comfortable in the free dance. We were especially pleased to keep the flow going and the energy up during the slow piece in the middle of the program.’’
Poirier said the couple made changes to the free skate following their fourth place at the Grand Prix stop in Russia.
‘’We opened up the transitions making them less cumbersome so we can move and skate more freely.
Japan was 1-2 in women’s competition. Satoko Miyahara took the gold, Kaori Sakamoto the silver and Bradie Tennell of the U.S. was third.
Gabrielle Daleman of Newmarket, Ont., third after the short program, struggled in her free skate and placed sixth overall.
‘’Technically it didn’t go my way today,’’ said Daleman. ‘’That’s the way this sport goes and that’s the name of the game. I know what I need to work on and it is just a lot of repetition.’’
Canada ended the competition with one bronze medal earned by Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford in pairs on Saturday.
Full results: ISU GP 2017 Bridgestone Skate America
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