Three-time reigning world champion Kaori Sakamoto on Saturday led a Japanese podium sweep at Skate Canada, locking up a second straight Canadian women’s title despite two falls in her free skate.
Sakamoto, who led 19-year-old American Alysa Liu after the short program, looked a little tight during her jazzy free skate, falling on a Salchow jump and again on a triple flip while fighting to hang on to a few other moves.
Her second-best free skate score of 126.24 was enough for gold in the second Grand Prix event of the season in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Photo: AFP
She finished with 201.21 points, well ahead of compatriot Rino Matsuiki — who roared from 10th place with a sensational free skate that earned 139.85 points for a total of 192.16.
Japan’s Hana Yoshida was third with 191.37 points as Liu, in her first Grand Prix event since 2021, dropped to sixth.
Reigning pairs world champions Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps of Canada captured their second consecutive Skate Canada title, also despite finishing second in the free skate.
Photo: AFP
Men’s world champion Ilia Malinin got off to a roaring start in his bid to complete a rare Skate America-Skate Canada double with a short program that garnered 106.22 points.
Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps had led after Friday’s short program. Their free skate earned 124.10 points, enough to give them gold with a total of 197.33 points ahead of Uzbekistan’s Ekaterina Geynish and Dmitrii Chigirev, who topped the free skate with 126.12 points.
That lifted the Uzbek duo, fourth after the short program, into second overall on 189.65 with Australians Anastasia Golubeva and Hektor Giotopoulos Moore third overall on 186.14.
Malinin, the 19-year-old from the US who won a third consecutive Skate America title last week, delivered a superb short program that put him almost 10 points ahead of Japan’s Shun Sato going into yesterday’s deciding free skate.
The 20-year-old Sato, a former world junior champion, earned 96.52 points. Reigning Skate Canada champion Yamamoto Sota was third on 92.16.
Malinin, the self-styled “Quad God,” won last year’s ISU Grand Prix Final then claimed his first world title with a world record free skate point total.
After a short program featuring a quadruple flip and a quadruple Lutz-triple toe combination he is poised to become the first man since Alexei Yagudin in 1999 to win both Skate America and Skate Canada — the only time a men’s skater has won the opening two Grand Prix events of a season.
“I felt really relaxed today,” said Malinin, who admitted feeling the pressure at Skate America last week. “Today it was a lot easier.”
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