American ice dancers Maia and Alex Shibutani continued their winning streak by taking gold at the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships at the Taipei Arena yesterday.
The sibling team clinched the victory after their free dance to Fix You by Coldplay, a boost of confidence for the newly crowned US National Champions.
“We were very excited to win the national title for the first time and that has a level of confidence that comes with it that we’ve taken into this week of our skating,” elder brother Alex said.
Photo: Ritchie B. Tongo, EPA
“We feel like we’re just starting to scratch the surface of what our potential can be, so we’re really looking forward to the lead up to 2018,” Maia added.
They scored a personal best of 108.76 points in their free dance performance for an overall total of 181.62 points.
Fellow Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates scored an overall 174.64, leaping their way to silver after a disappointing fourth place in Thursday’s short program.
Last year’s Four Continents champions Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje failed to defend their title, finishing third with an overall 173.85 points.
“I did stumble in the program a couple times,” Canadian Poje said, referring to yesterday’s free dance in which they ranked fourth. “I’m not proud of that. I’ll go home and work on that in making sure that doesn’t happen again.”
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