SOFIA, Bulgaria- Natalie D’Alessandro and Bruce Waddell of Toronto are now four-for-four in international podium performances this season after a silver medal in junior ice dancing on Sunday at the Egna Dance Trophy figure skating competition.

Katerina Mrázková and Daniel Mrázek of the Czech Republic won the gold medal with 167.06 points. D’Alessandro and Waddell followed at 159.71 and Elizabeth Tkachenko and Alexei Kiliakov of Israel were third at 153.02.

There were 21 entries.

‘’We’re pretty happy with our performance,’’ said Waddell, 20. ‘’We know what we want to improve on and ramp up for junior worlds. We went out and did what we could today and we are pretty happy with it.’’

D’Alessandro said she was happy with the progress they showed.

‘’We felt like our performance definitely took a step forward from some of our others throughout the season,’’ said D’Alessandro.  ‘’But we still have lots of areas to improve with our technical scores, so we’ll go back to training and evaluate all the areas we need to improve.’’

On the ISU Junior Grand Prix circuit, the Canadian couple collected gold and silver in their two assignments and earned a berth in the Junior Grand Prix Final. The Final was cancelled due to COVID-19 issues in Japan.

They also won an international event in Austria and took gold in junior ice dance at the 2022 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships. They are coached by Andrew Hallam, Joey Russell, and Tracy Wilson in Toronto.  

Their next competition is the world juniors set for March 7-13, also in Sofia. Waddell was able to pinpoint some elements that need more polish.

‘’Cleaner turns, more for sure on each element so there’s nothing to be questioned technically,’’ he said.

‘’We want to maintain the same level of performance while adding the technical aspects to that and of course just improving our speed across the ice,’’ added D’Alessandro.

D’Alessandro and Waddell were the only Canadian entries in Sofia.

Full results: https://www.fisg.it/upload/result/5601/index.html