Brasseur and Ostiguy place fifth at junior Grand Prix
LINZ, Austria – Justine Brasseur of Brossard, Que., and Mathieu Ostiguy of Ste-Angele-de-Monnoir, Que., placed fifth in pairs on Saturday to conclude the fourth stop on the ISU Junior Grand Prix figure skating circuit.
Amina Atakhanova and Ilia Spiridonov of Russia took the gold with Anna Duskova and Martin Bidar of the Czech Republic second and Renata Oganesian and Mark Bardei of Ukraine third.
Brasseur and Ostiguy were sixth at the second stop in Riga, Latvia last month.
‘’We trained really hard after the last Grand Prix and it has really paid off,’’ said Brasseur, 14. ‘’We improved in all areas and had our best score.’’
In ice dancing, Alla Loboda and Pavel Drodz of Russia were the winners with Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac of France second and Julia Biechler and Damian Dodge of the U.S. third.
Haley Sales of Burnaby, B.C., and Nikolas Wamsteeker of Langley, B.C., were sixth and Ashlynne Stairs of Calgary and Lee Royer of St. Albert, Alta., eighth.
‘’Today we had a nice free dance even though we had a tough week,’’ said Sales, who became ill after landing in Europe after her first overseas trip. ‘’We had to make some adjustments because we didn’t get all our training in but we were able to put in a good performance.’’
It was also a first Junior Grand Prix experience for Stairs and Royer.
‘’We have to thanks our coaches for preparing us so well for this competition,’’ said Royer. ‘’We didn’t feel as nervous as I thought we would. We went in to do our best and got our highest scores.’’
In the men’s final, Dmitri Aliev of Russia won gold, Ivan Pavlov of Ukraine was second and Vincent Zhou of the U.S. was third.
Edrian Paul Celestino of Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Que., produced he ninth best long program to climb from 17th to ninth overall.
‘’I definitely need to be more consistent with my jumping,’’ said Celestino. ‘’But this was better than my short program so it’s nice to leave here with some confidence.’’
The next stop on the circuit is in two weeks in Torun, Poland.
Full results: 2015 Cup of Austria