Nicolas Nadeau wins at Skate Canada Challenge, Soucisse and Tanguay take ice dance title
EDMONTON – Nicolas Nadeau of Boisbriand, Que., won the gold medal in the senior men’s event on Sunday at the Skate Canada Challenge figure skating competition.
Nadeau, a silver medallist earlier this season at the Junior Grand Prix event in Croatia, totalled 233.01 points. Olympian Kevin Reynolds of Coquitlam, B.C., took the silver at 207.09 and Keegan Messing of Sherwood Park, Alta., was third at 200.50.
“It wasn’t perfect but I achieved my goals,’’ said Nadeau. “I feel I’ve set myself up well for the nationals.’’
In ice dance, Carolane Soucisse of Chateauguay, Que., and Simon Tanguay of Montreal were the winners at 143.70. They edged Lauren Collins and Shane Firus of Barrie, Ont., in second at 142.98 and Andréanne Poulin and Marc-André Servant of Montreal in third at 142.96.
‘’We didn’t expect the gold medal,’’ said Soucisse. ‘’We wanted to do a good performance in both programs. We were more clean with the elements especially in the short dance.’’
In junior competition, Joseph Phan of Gatineau, Que., took the men’s title while Melinda Meng and Andrew Meng of Montreal were the ice dance winners.
‘’I didn’t feel nervous here because I was well prepared,’’ said Phan. ‘’I just need to keep working hard for the nationals.’’
‘’We produced two pretty solid performances,’’ said Melinda Meng. ‘’We really wanted to bring up the emotion in our programs and we skated our best so far in that sense.’’
The weekend’s winners in novice competition were Stephen Gogolev of Toronto for the men and Alicia Fabbri of Terrebonne, Que., and Claudio Pietrantonio of Laval, Que., in ice dancing.
The pre-novice winners were Koen Kucher of Regina for the men and Natalie D’Alessandro and Bruce Waddell of Toronto in ice dancing.
This is the sole qualifying event for novice, junior, and senior skaters to earn entries to the 2016 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships taking place in Halifax, N.S., from January 18-24, 2016.
Full results: 2016 Skate Canada Challenge.