Moore-Towers and Marinaro win free, take silver at Finlandia Open

ESPOO, Finland – Kirsten Moore-Towers of St. Catharines, Ont., and Michael Marinaro of Sarnia, Ont., won Saturday’s free skate to earn the silver medal in pairs at the Filandia Open figure skating competition.

Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov of Russia won the gold with 198.98 points. The Canadians, third after Friday’s short, followed closely at 193.93 and Aleksandra Boikova and Dmitrii Kozlovskii of Russia were third at 188.54.

“We felt good about our competition but we had mistakes in both programs,” said Moore-Towers. “Our goal was to was have an improvement from the Autumn Classic International (at which they also placed second two weeks ago in Oakville) and we definitely did that. We’ll follow the same path to be ready for Skate Canada International (October 26-28 in Laval, Que).”

In men’s competition, Nicolas Nadeau of Blainville, Que., was less than four points from the podium finishing fourth with 227.76. Mikhail Kolyada of Russia was the winner with 250.58, Junhwan Cha of South Korea second at 239.19 and Morisi Kvitelashvili of Georgia third at 231.19.

“I only have one quad in the long so I need to execute it better,” said Nadeau. “Also a big mistake on my triple Axel which is my best jump which was disappointing after landing the first one in the long and also in the short.”

In the short dance, Carolane Soucisse of Chateauguay, Que., and Shane Firus of North Vancouver stand third with 70.79, less than two points out of second spot.

On Friday, Véronik Mallet of Sept-Iles, Que., was seventh after the women’s short.

Competition ends Sunday with the free dance and women’s free skate.

Full results Filandia Open: CS Finlandia Trophy Espoo 2018