Double gold for Canada at Finlandia Trophy – Duhamel/Radford and Osmond triumph

ESPOO, Finland – It was a gold medal day for Meagan Duhamel Lively, Ont., and Eric Radford of Balmertown, Ont., in pairs and Kaetlyn Osmond of Marystown, N.L., in women’s singles in their season debut on Friday at the Finlandia Trophy figure skating competition.

In women’s competition, Osmond roared from third spot after the short to take the crown with a personal best 187.27 points. It was her fourth career international win. She landed her first triple-triple combo and a personal record six triple jumps overall.

She beat three-time world champion Mao Asada of Japan in second at 186.16 and Anna Pogorilaya of Russia third at 182.80.

‘’I’m really happy with my long program, the highlight was landing that triple-triple in my first attempt,’’ said Osmond. ‘’I couldn’t be happier with it.’’

In pairs, Canada’s two-time world champions totalled 197.78 points for the victory with Kristina Astakhova and Alexei Rogonov of Russia second at 169.10 and Mari Vartmann and Ruben Blommaert of Germany third at 164.91.

‘’We are feeling much more satisfied with this long program than the short (on Thursday),’’ said Radford. ‘’We have felt uneasy all week but it is the beginning of the season and even though we left a lot of points on the table in the long program we did some really good stuff and set a good base for us to improve upon as we head into the rest of the season.’’

‘’That was the best we had in us today,’’ added Duhamel. ‘’Everyday your 100 percent is different and today that was ours. It’s a good start to a long season.’’

On Saturday it’s the men’s short program featuring Patrick Chan of Toronto with the free skate set for Sunday.

Full results: 2016 Finlandia Trophy Espoo