HAMILTON – Les Suprêmes from St-Léonard, Que., won the gold medal on Saturday for Canada’s first victory in seven years at the ISU World Synchronized Skating Championships.
The Canadian champions, coached by Marilyn Langlois, Pascal Denis and Amélie Brochu moved from second spot after Friday’s short program. They delivered a breathtaking free skate to a loud audience at First Ontario Centre which featured music from the movie The White Crow.
They totalled 236.31 points the highest score ever recorded at worlds since the current scoring system was implemented in 2005. They ranked first in all scoring areas including skating skills, transitions components and performance.
‘’It felt really good to be skating in front of our home crowd,’’ said team captain Laurie Désilet. ‘’We couldn’t do better than that. We are really proud. We wanted to be awesome tonight.’’
Marigold Ice Unity from Finland took the silver with 228.72 and their compatriots the Helsinki Rockettes were third at 226.20. The Rockettes were first after the short and skated last on Saturday. There was a costly mistake in their free skate when two skaters fell. It ranked fifth.
Les Suprêmes team members were Amelia Asparian, Anouk Begin, Karianne Begin, Julia Bernardo, Anne-Claude Champagne, Loriana Cocca, Marie-Ève Comtois, Laurie Désilets, Olivia Di Giandomenico, Lisanne Foley, Charlotte Grutter, Alessia Hart-Lewis, Giulia Hart-Lewis, Audrey-Ann Lajeunesse, Agathe Sigrid Merlier, Andréanne Paradis, Martha Maria Pietrasik, Florence Poulin, Olivia Ronca and Emmakaisa Tikkinen.
The last time les Suprêmes won a medal at worlds was a bronze in 2003.
Canada’s second entry, Nexxice, from Burlington, Ont., was fourth at 224.38 out of 23 entries, just missing a ninth worlds medal.
They delivered a memorable routine composed by Indigenous artist Jeremy Dutcher which combined the digitization voices of his ancestors with his own classically trained tenor. Nexxice took the last Canadian world crown in 2015 when the worlds were also in Hamilton.
Skating for Nexxice were Nyah Bay, Megan Brown, Emma Daigle, Denika Ellis-Dawson, Jasmine Gagnon, Abbey Glumpak, Carleigh Gorrigsen, Lauren Hatfield, Sadie Hoover, Taylor Johnston, Elizabeth McKenna, Emily Monaghan, Sarah Constance Moss, Tegan Orr, Robbie-Lynn Puspoky, Sophia Tong, Olivia Tworzyanski, Melissa Van Loon, Brynn Wilkinson and Chelsea Wong.
‘’Our free skate was very special to us,’’ said Daigle. ‘’It was a program we wanted to show to the world. We couldn’t have asked for a better experience with the hometown crowd and we felt their support.
The last two world championships in 2020 and 2021 were cancelled due to the pandemic.
Full results: https://results.isu.org/results/season2122/wsysc2022/