Messing grabs silver medal, Moore-Towers take bronze
LAVAL, QUE. — Canada’s newest figure skating star loves to ham it up for the crowd. He has skated atop an Alaskan iceberg. And he’s aiming to be the first man to land a quadruple Axel in competition.
Keegan Messing captured silver in men’s singles at Skate Canada International on Saturday, climbing the medal podium for the first time at a Grand Prix event. And moments after his entertaining program to a Charlie Chaplin medley — complete with the spinning of an invisible walking stick — the quirky 26-year-old talked about his new role in the spotlight.
“I don’t know how I feel about that yet, except for the fact that I’m happy, especially since it’s the first real competition of the year and I put out two good performances,” Messing said. “I’m really happy on how things are turning out, I’m excited to see how it keeps unfolding. These first couple of pages have been fun. Let’s see how the whole book is.”
Messing, who led after Friday’s short program, scored 265.17 points. Olympic silver medallist Shoma Uno of Japan rebounded from a disastrous short program to win gold with 277.25. Cha Jun-Hwan, a 17-year-old from South Korea who trains in Toronto with Brian Orser, took bronze with 254.77.
Messing’s medal was Canada’s second of the day. Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro won pairs bronze.
Russia’s Elizaveta Tuktamysheva won the women’s singles.
Normally a dependable jumper, the five-foot-four Messing landed just one of his planned three quads on Saturday. Over the summer, video emerged of Messing landing a quadruple Axel while in a harness, which resembles a huge fishing pole.
Nam Nguyen of Toronto, meanwhile, laid down two excellent programs for the first time in awhile to finish fifth.
The 20-year-old landed both his quads, and when the music stopped, he shook two celebratory fists at the crowd.
Skating to a Pink Floyd medley, Moore Towers, from St. Catharines, and Marinaro, from Sarnia, scored 200.93 points, narrowly missing out on pairs silver.
The difference was a downgrade on their death spiral, which was their final element.
“Missing the level on the death spiral in the final 10 seconds of the program was a really big bummer, half a point there cost us a silver medal, so it’s definitely a learning experience, margins here are so, so tiny,” Marinaro said.