France’s Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron took gold at the World Figure Skating Championships ice dance event in Shanghai yesterday, the high point of a remarkable breakthrough season for the duo.
The pair gave a rousing performance to score 112.34 points in the final free dance and finish with 184.28 overall, marking another milestone following their European Championships victory in January.
The win in Shanghai represents an incredible achievement for Papadakis, 19, and Cizeron, 20, who are the youngest world champions for 49 years.
Photo: EPA
They finished 13th in the World Championships last year — their first season in senior competition. The pair emerged as a force in ice dance at the Grand Prix Final in December, when they came third.
“We are still very young and we feel like we want to go so much further now, not for the medals, but for ourselves,” Cizeron said. “I think that is what we have always done. We want to improve. We want to get better at what we do and what we love to do.”
“I think that is what makes us strong,” he said. “We don’t really run after medals. We just want to have fun and take a lot of pleasure.”
Photo: EPA
They finished fourth in Shanghai on Wednesday at the opening short program, but captivated the audience at Shanghai’s Oriental Sports Center with their finale.
To the music of Mozart’s Concerto No. 23, Papadakis and Cizeron confidently swept through their program before bringing the crowd to their feet with a passionate choreographed spin.
Papadakis said the pair were “disappointed” with their performance on Wednesday, adding “it gave us a lot of strength — we wanted to fight.”
“It is a big surprise to be here right now,” she said following the win. “Our goal at the beginning of the season was to be in the top 10.”
It was an emphatic display from the pair, who finished almost six points ahead of US champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who took second place with a score of 106.87 and 181.34 overall.
Pretournament favorites Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje of Canada — who won at both the Grand Prix Final and Four Continents championships in Seoul last month — finished third with 106.74 points, 179.42 overall.
“We gave everything that we could and that is our ultimate goal and what we trained for,” Weaver said.
“Unfortunately the marks did not come out in our favor, but we are not going to mark this season off as a loss. We had an incredible year,” she added.
“We have to be very happy with ourselves and are going to use this — as always — as a learning experience,” Weaver said.
Anna Capelliini and Luca Lanotte of Italy, and Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani of the US were fourth and fifth respectively in both the free dance and the final standings.
Yu Yao-hsing on Tuesday nabbed Taiwan’s only goal in the final round of qualifiers for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup, as they fell 3-1 to Sri Lanka at Taipei Municipal Stadium. Early goals from Sri Lanka in the first half left Taiwan struggling to get on the board, and Christopher Tiao’s own goal at 53 minutes sealed the team’s fate in the third round of qualifiers. While acknowledging that the defeat, Taiwan’s sixth in Group D, was disappointing, head coach Matt Ross said he saw reasons to stay positive about the team’s development. “There were lots of positive signs in terms of the
Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli yesterday vowed to “keep raising the bar” after winning the Japanese Grand Prix to become the youngest driver in Formula One history to lead the championship standings. The 19-year-old Italian took advantage of a mid-race safety car to jump into the lead after a dreadful start from pole position, crossing the line ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Antonelli’s Suzuka victory came two weeks after the first grand prix win of his career in China, and sent him top of the championship standings after three races, nine points ahead of team-mate George Russell. Mercedes are struggling to
INDIGESTION: Italy failed to qualify for the World Cup for a third consecutive time after a 4-1 defeat to Bosnia on penalties in a loss Gattuso said was ‘difficult to digest’ Coach Graham Arnold on Tuesday challenged his players to “shock the world” after Iraq became the 48th and final team to qualify for the FIFA World Cup with a nerve-shredding 2-1 win over Bolivia in an intercontinental playoff in Mexico, as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Sweden and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) also secured their places at the finals. Iraq, whose preparations were disrupted by the war in the Middle East, sealed their first appearance at the finals in 40 years and are to play in Group I against France, Senegal and Norway. Goals from Ali al-Hamadi
Teng Kai-wei, the only Taiwanese player on an opening-day roster in this year’s Major League Baseball (MLB) season, took his first win of the year with the Houston Astros in his season debut. Teng entered in relief in the top of the fifth inning against the Los Angeles Angels on Saturday, with the Astros trailing 5-0. He pitched 2-1/3 scoreless innings with two strikeouts, as Houston scored 11 runs during his outing to snatch an 11-9 comeback victory. The win is the Astros’ first of the season and the third of Teng’s MLB career. “It’s my first time pitching for the Astros, so
RSS