Grand Prix gold medal for Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje
MOSCOW – Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje of Waterloo, Ont., won the gold medal in ice dancing on Saturday at the Rostelecom Cup, the fifth stop on the ISU Grand Prix figure skating circuit.
Weaver and Poje earned 173.58 points for their fifth straight victory on the circuit. It was just 0.21 points lower than the score they received three weeks ago in their victory at Skate Canada. Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte of Italy were second at 171.61 and Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov of Russia third at 167.40.
“We can feel very strong here about our competition in Moscow,” said Weaver. “We had two clean performances. Both can be better of course. The free was a little bit conservative but it is still early in the season and we are growing so much with this program.”
Weaver said the program can look even more effortless.
“We could have been a little bit more free,” she said. “Especially with the emotions and also with the speed. But we got the job done, we did the important things, we build each time we are out.”
In women’s competition, Alaine Chartrand of Prescott, Ont., struggled with her jumps and dropped from second after the short program to sixth. She finished with a season’s best 173.42 points.
Elena Radionova led a Russian medal sweep.
In men’s competition, 17-year-old Nam Nguyen of Toronto finished seventh. He landed two quad jumps and a triple Axel in his demanding program. His most noticeable mistake was touching his hand on the ice after his triple Lutz.
“It was a good fight from yesterday,” said Nguyen, seventh in Friday’s short program. “But I felt my energy level was really low so my performance suffered on that front.”
Javier Fernandez of Spain won the gold medal.
In pairs, Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov led Russia to a 1-2 finish. Kirsten Moore-Towers of St. Catharines, Ont., and Michael Marinaro of Sarnia, Ont., were seventh and Hayleigh Bell and Rudi Swiegers of Regina were eighth.
The sixth and last stop before the Grand Prix Final is Friday and Saturday at the NHK Trophy in Nagano, Japan.
Full results : ISU GP Rostelecom Cup 2015