Chen, French ice dance stars take gold in Grenoble

GRENOBLE, France: France’s ice dance world champions Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron floated to gold at the Internationaux de France in Grenoble on Saturday, with American teenager Nathan Chen taking the men’s title.

The 19-year-old Chen was lying 10 points off the lead after Friday’s short routine, but a free programme that scored him 184.64 points saw him take gold.

Chen included a quadruple flip, quadruple toe and a quad toe-triple toe combination in his programme to ‘Land Of All’ by Woodkid to total 271.58 points, beating US compatriot Jason Brown and Russia’s Alexander Samarin.

Chen also struggled in the short programme at the Pyeongchang Olympics, before a stunning free skate saw him finish fifth overall.

He will next turn out in the Grand Prix Finals in Vancouver later this month where he will face double Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu as long as the Japanese star recovers from an injury he suffered in Moscow.

“I’m pretty happy with my performance of the long program, definitely more satisfied with the long than with the short,” the Yale student said.

“I’m looking forward to continuing to develop the program and develop the technical side of the program.”

In the ice dance, Olympic silver medallists Papadakis and Cizeron were head and shoulders above their rivals, earning a season best 132.65 points for their free dance.

That gave them a total of 216.78 points after Friday’s short programme scored 84.13 points.

They took gold 15 points clear of their nearest rivals Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov of Russia to cement their positions as favourites to claim a fourth world title in Minsk in January.

The all-conquering pair’s manager Romain Haguenauer beamed: “By their event and total score they’ve returned telling everyone they are the masters.”

They were performing in public for the first time their 2018/2019 free dance routine to the music of American guitarist Rachael Yamagata.

“It’s the start of a new cycle, with more maturity than in previous years,” said Cizeron. — AFP