Ilia Malinin of the United States competes in the men's free program at the Skate Canada International figure skating competition in Halifax on Sunday, October 27, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese
HALIFAX – Ice dancers Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier are gold medallists for the fifth straight time at Skate Canada International.
Toronto’s Gilles and Poirier, from Unionville, Ont., scored 128.40 points for their free dance routine to Annie Lennox’s cover of “A Whiter Shade of Pale” on Sunday.
After building a comfortable lead in the rhythm dance, the reigning world silver medallists finished with a total of 214.84.
Marjorie Lajoie of Boucherville, Que., and Zachary Lagha of Saint-Hubert, Que., (199.90) won silver and received a standing ovation for their captivating skate to “The Sound of Silence.”
France’s Evgenia Lopareva and Geoffrey Brissaud (194.25) claimed bronze while Alicia Fabbri of Terrebonne, Que., and Paul Ayer of Brossard, Que., were eighth.
Earlier on Sunday, U.S. figure skating star Ilia Malinin dominated the field and captured men’s gold.
The reigning world champion received a standing ovation for his vampire-themed free program – which included a backflip – and won by more than 40 points to claim a Grand Prix title on consecutive weekends.
Malinin also won Skate America in Allen, Texas, last Sunday.
“I’m pretty happy with my skate today,” Malinin said. “It was very tough doing these two back-to-back Grand Prix, and overall I’m pretty satisfied with my performance and how I was able to manage this.”
The 19-year-old scored 301.82 in total. Japan’s Shun Sato (261.16) won silver while South Korea’s Junhwan Cha (260.31) took bronze.
Malinin’s only mistake was on a quad loop during the fourth segment of his program.
“I’m a little bit bummed out with the loop,” he said. “But it is what it is. When it happened I just had to push it aside for now and continue with the rest of the program.
“I’m always challenging myself. That’s my main competitor, is just being able to fight through a program start to finish. Of course my goal was to go for that quad loop here as well, but it didn’t happen.”
Aleksa Rakic of Burnaby, B.C., scored 222.49 as the top Canadian, finishing seventh in the 12-skater field.
“There’s proof in my improvements, getting this score,” Rakic said. “Last year or two years ago, I would’ve had to have been absolutely perfect. Here I’ve had mistakes and missed elements, that means I can get even more points.”
Toronto’s Stephen Gogolev (216.84) fell to ninth after placing fifth in the short program.
Roman Sadovsky of Vaughan, Ont., withdrew for medical reasons after finishing last in the short program Saturday.
Canada’s Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps repeated as pairs gold medallists Saturday, while three-time world champion Kaori Sakamoto of Japan won the women’s title.
The Grand Prix, the top series in figure skating, consists of six events and a final. Next up is the Grand Prix de France from Nov. 1-3.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 27, 2024.
