Shoma Uno and Kaetlyn Osmond were in leagues of their own in winning the men’s and women’s crowns on Saturday at Skate Canada International.
Japan’s Uno opened with a gorgeous quadruple loop and produced a quad toe loop combo, but faltered on the landing of two other quads, including his trademark flip.
Still, the reigning world silver medalist who led from pillar to post, finished 40 points clear of second place American Jason Brown 301.1 to 261.14.
Photo: Sergei Belski / USA TODAY
Russian Alexander Samarin notched two strong quads to grab bronze with 250.06 ahead of Patrick Chan after the Canadian star struggled through one of his worst performances in memory.
Chan fell on his opening quad attempt, then turned four triple jumps and a second quad to doubles to place seventh in the free skate and fourth overall.
Uno’s challenge to himself was to execute the three jump combos that eluded him in the past.
“I’m really satisfied I made my goal this week and hopefully I can connect it to my second Grand Prix competition in France,” he said.
On the women’s side, overnight leader Osmond’s Black Swan program proved golden as she finished with 212.91, about 20 points beyond her nearest challenger.
It was not the picture-perfect performance the Canadian had delivered the day before, but six triple jumps within sophisticated choreography was more than enough to prevail.
“I love this program and I got a great reaction from the crowd and it just makes the program even more exciting for me knowing that the audience loves it,” she said. “All the jumps didn’t work, but I’m happy with the overall package.”
Russian Maria Sotskova took silver with 192.52, while Ashley Wagner of the US rebounded from her subpar short program and climbed from seventh to third with 183.94.
“I definitely put out two solid performances. They were sloppy, but sloppiness can be fixed,” Wagner said.
Russian Anna Pogorilaya plummeted from second in the opener to ninth overall with a disastrous performance reminiscent of her collapse at this year’s Worlds.
Canadian ice dance virtuosos Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir claimed their seventh Skate Canada title with a record total score of 199.86, breaking their own previous high mark set in winning their third world title in March last year.
The 2010 Olympic champions captivated the crowd with their passionate Moulin Rouge portrayal that approached perfection.
“We wanted to perform well. This is a program that we’re both really attached to and we felt the pressure to give Regina a show, start the year off with a bang,” Moir said.
In pairs, Canadians Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford overtook first-round leaders Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot of Germany to take gold.
A gorgeous throw quad salchow helped the twice world champs to a total of 222.22, while Savchenko and Massot posted 215.66.
The Grand Prix series moves to Beijing next week. The only Skate Canada competitor assigned to that event is Japanese Marin Honda, who finished fifth in her senior debut.
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