Canadian ice dancers take bronze at ISU Junior Grand Prix

BOLZANO, Italy – Ice dancers Alicia Fabbri of Terrebonne, Que., and Claudio Pietrantonio of Laval, Que., reached new heights on the ISU Junior Grand Prix figure skating circuit on Friday winning the bronze medal.

Russian couples were 1-2 with Arina Ushakova and Maxim Nekrasov  first with 149.01 points and Sofia Polischuk and Alexander Vakhnov second at 146.78.

Fabbri and Pietrantonio followed at 136.01 for their best career result on the circuit in four appearances. They were just ahead of Ellie Fisher of Lower Coverdale, N.B., and Simon-Pierre Malette-Paquette of Laval in fourth at 133.38.

‘’We gave everything we got,’’ said Fabbri. ‘’We are so pleased to get our first medal. After our first Grand Prix this year we really worked on the areas that we needed to improve.’’

After struggling earlier in the week in practice, Pietrantonio said the skating improved.

“We just got better everyday and when the competition started we were ready,’’ he said. ‘’Third place never felt like a win before. We’re proud of this one.’’

Fisher and Malette-Paquette improved their overall score by 11 points and gained a spot in the standings on their performance earlier this season in Croatia.

“We trained hard and saw the improvement,’’ said Fisher. ‘’We were more confident and skated a lot better element-wise.’’

Being close to a medal heading into the free dance didn’t change their approach.

‘’We kept our game plan,’’ said Malette-Paquette. ‘’We wanted to be aggressive and perform like we know we can.’’

Meanwhile Alison Shumacher of Toronto is eight after the women’s short program and Eric Liu of Edmonton is 13^th after the men’s short.

The men’s and women’s free skates are Saturday.

Full results: ISU JGP Egna/Neumarkt 2017