Virtue and Moir dance off with gold
Poje, Weaver fifth, as Chan off to a bad start in short program
PYEONGCHANG, KOREA, REPUBLIC OF — Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir captured the gold medal in ice dancing Friday at the ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships.
Virtue, from London, Ont., and Moir, from nearby Ilderton, scored 196.95 points after the free dance to claim first place.
They had led the field after the short program.
Americans Maia and Alex Shibutani took second place with 191.85 points.
And fellow U.S. teammates Madison Chock and Evan Bates took the bronze medal with 185.58 points.
Kaitlyn Weaver of Toronto and Andrew Poje, of Waterloo, finished in fifth place — one spot ahead of Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Toronto.
Virtue and Moir scored a personal best 117.20 with their free dance to “Pilgrims on a Long Journey” by Montreal’s Coeur De Pirate, and Sam Smith’s hit song “Latch.”
“What an honour for Tessa and I to be Four Continents champions,” Moir said.
“It was obviously a goal of ours just to qualify for this event at the beginning of the year.
“Today was an interesting performance for us as we left a couple of points on the board, but it was really special for us to be in that venue.
“We really felt the energy and we’re really happy with certain parts of our performance.
“We’re going to be pretty excited, looking forward to the next five weeks for the world championship.”
Meanwhile, it was a tough day for Canadian star Patrick Chan, who fell on his opening quad toe loop and stumbled on the landing of a triple toe loop to finish in fifth place with 88.46 points after the men’s short program.
Chan is a three-time winner of the Four Continents meet, the final tune-up for next month’s world championships in Helsinki and a test event for the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics.
American Nathan Chen took first place after opening with a quad lutz-triple toe loop combination at the Gangneung Ice Arena and adding a quad flip and a triple Axel for 103.12 points.
Shoma Uno of Japan was second with 100.28 points after landing all his jumps cleanly, while Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu had 97.04 in third.
Hanyu opened with a quad loop but could only manage a double Salchow instead of a planned quad Salchow as part of a combination jump that included a triple toe loop.
Boyang Jin of China was fourth with 91.33 points.
The women’s and pairs free skate is on Saturday.
The men’s free program is Sunday.