Canada’s dynamic pair in top form heading into long program
To begin their last competition before Pyeongchang 2018, Canadian pairs skaters Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford showed why they will again be medal favourites at the Olympics.
Duhamel and Radford performed a spotless short program, scoring just above their target of 81 points and opening a chasm ahead of the rest of the field at the national figure skating championships.
“That was pretty much along the lines of how we train every day,” Duhamel said after the skate, which was met with a standing ovation at this rink on the University of British Columbia campus.
But Duhamel was also already thinking about ways to improve.
“I can already think of little areas, you know I could have finished my crossover a little better, we could have had more fluidity out of that Lutz, all these little things that will help us to score that 81 points or higher once we get to Pyeongchang,” she said.
The pair skated to a breathy cover version of U2’s With or Without You performed by Nevada-based singer-songwriter April Meservy, who was in the audience Friday night.
“I think we couldn’t have asked for a more emotional interpretation of her music than we did tonight,” Duhamel said.
The skaters said an anonymous donor — apparently someone who is a big fan of skating and also has money to burn — arranged for Meservy to make the trip to Vancouver.
“It is her first time in Canada. It’s her first time at a skating competition,” Radford said. “It’s a nice little story, and so it made us happy that we were able to show her that kind of skate.”
They planned to meet her in person for the first time Friday night, having interacted a few times on social media.
“She was honoured that we chose her music to perform to, and I think she’s joined the skating fandom now,” Duhamel said. “It’s really nice to have her support.”
The pair will perform their free skate Saturday to Hometown Glory by Adele.
“I don’t think she’s going to be here tomorrow,” Duhamel said.
CHAN IN FAMILIAR POSITION
Patrick Chan talked this week about finding new-found confidence in his skating, but in Friday night’s short program he did not display his world championship form.
Chan almost landed his first quad jump, but ended up tumbling forward and hitting the ice. The Olympic silver medallist from Sochi, who is skating in his final competitive season, recovered with a clean combination to salvage the program — and his score of 90.88 was still good enough to put him in first place heading into Saturday’s free skate. After his skate, Chan said his confidence was still coming back, and that he felt much different than after his last competitive program, a mistake-filled effort at Skate Canada International in the fall.
“I’m excited for tomorrow as opposed to dreading it,” he said.
Chan said his mistake on the quad came from getting his upper body turning too fast ahead of his legs, which caused him to “land a bit heavy, I think.”
“It was a bit of a shock, but, you know, I got up and recovered,” he said.
Before Chan’s performance, the battle for the two men’s singles spots on the Canadian Olympic team played out about as tightly as expected. Several skaters landed quadruple jumps, some of them in combination. But with so many men in close contention, any stumble was costly.
Keegan Messing skated a clean program to score 85.65 and Elladj Balde was at 84.91 after a mistakefree performance of his own. Kevin Reynolds, a veteran of the Sochi team that medalled in the team event, scored 86.20 just before Chan took the ice.
ROUGH START FOR WEAVER- POJE
The ice-dance pairing of Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje suffered an unexpected setback Friday when Poje stumbled and fell during a side-by-side “twizzle” element of their short program. The three-time Canadian silver medallists sat in fourth heading into Saturday’s long programs.
For Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, who skated immediately following them, the incident was a reminder of the need to not lose focus.
“As friends, you feel bad for them,” said Moir, who has stumbled on a similar move in competition before. “But we know the long program they have and we have no doubt they will climb back into the spot they want to be in.”
Moir then gave an even more optimistic spin on Poje’s fall: “For them, maybe it’s better here than at the Games.”
Both pairs are expected to be among the three ice-dance teams Canada sends to Pyeongchang.