Fournier Beaudry and Sørensen Hang on to bronze at Skate America

LAS VEGAS – Ice dancers Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Sørensen of Montreal earned their third career bronze medal on the ISU Grand Prix figure skating circuit on Sunday as they held on to third spot at Skate America.

Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue collected gold for the fourth straight Skate America event with 209.54 points. Their compatriots Madison Chock and Evan Bates were second at 208.23 and Fournier Beaudry and Sørensen followed at 190.13, just under 11 points off their personal best.

The Canadians ranked fourth for the free dance but held on to third by a mere 0.44 points over Olivia Smart and Adrian Diaz of Spain in fourth.

‘’It was so great to be back in international competition with an audience,’’ said Sørensen, eighth with his partner at the world championships this past March. ‘’We really felt them with us in both programs and it gave us the energy to produce two clean skates.’’

Fournier Beaudry and Sørensen also won bronze in 2019 at Skate America and the Cup of China.

Carolane Soucisse of Chateauguay, Que., and Shane Firus of North Vancouver moved from eighth after the rhythm dance to seventh overall.

‘’It was an awesome experience,’’ said Firus ranked third with Soucisse in Canada. ‘’We are really happy with our performances, we don’t feel at this point in the season we could have done much better. We had some objectives for this meet and we achieved them.’’

On Saturday night, Nam Nguyen of Ajax, Ont., was eighth in men’s competition and Evelyn Walsh of London, Ont., and Trennt Michaud of Trenton, Ont., were eighth in pairs. There were no Canadians in the women’s event.

The next stop on the circuit is Skate Canada International this upcoming Friday and Saturday in Vancouver.

Full results: http://www.isuresults.com/results/season2122/gpusa2021/