Moore-Towers returning to Olympics
Figure skater Kirsten MooreTowers is returning to the Winter Olympics, this time with a new pairs partner.
The 25-year-old from St. Catharines, a silver medallist in the inaugural team event with Dylan Moscovitch in Sochi 2014, is part of the largest figure skating team competing at this year’s Winter Games.
In all, Canada will be sending 17 athletes to the 2018 Winter Games taking place Feb. 9-25 in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Moore-Towers and her new partner, Michael Marinaro, are among three pairs on the Canadian national team. Also going to South Korea are Sochi 2014 silver medallists Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford, two-time world champions and seven-time national championships, and the pairs team of Julianne Seguin and Charlie Seguin, who are going to the Olympics for the first time.
Rounding out the Canadian figure skating contingent are three ice dance couples, three women and two men.
Moore-Towers and Marinaro, also 25, of Montreal have skated to two Grand Prix medals, including a bronze at the Cup of China this season, since they began competing together four years ago.
They won bronze Skate Canada International for their first Grand Prix medal together in October 2016 before finishing fourth, for the second year in a row, at the national championships.
Their partnership was put on hold after Moore-Towers suffered a Stage 3 concussion and took about eight months before she was able to go a day without symptoms.
Picking up where they left off, Moore-Towers and Marinaro skated to a third-place finish winning the bronze medal at the 2017 Canadian championships.
A bronze medal at the Cup of China in November was the the second top-three finish at a Grand Prix event for the pairs team.
Moore-Towers has lived in Anjou, Que., a suburb of Montreal, since she left Waterloo, Ont., to work with coaches Richard Gauthier and Bruno Marcotte.