Gold for Duhamel and Radford; World record for Virtue and Moir

SAPPORO, Japan – Canadian two-time world champions Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford won the gold medal in pairs while Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir set a world record in the short dance at the NHK Trophy, the sixth stop on the ISU Grand Prix figure skating circuit.

In pairs, Duhamel and Radford moved from second spot after the short to win their second gold medal this season on the circuit with 204.56 points. Cheng Peng and Yang Jin of China were second at 196.87 and their compatriots Xuehan Wang and Lei Wang were third at 185.32.

“There were some strong elements and there were some unfortunate mistakes,” said Radford from Balmertown, Ont. “But sometimes we have to make these mistakes throughout the season so we can learn from them and they don’t happen again.”

The Canadians’ program featured a great triple twist, side-by-side triple Lutz and throw quad Salchow.  They mistimed their first side-by-side jump and final lift.

“I don’t know what happened with the lift,” he said. “My body felt very tight and tired and we mismatched the timing on that last lift and it was a bit of a struggle.”

In the short dance, Virtue and Moir produced a 79.47 score which eclipsed the previous world mark of 78.89 set by Meryl Davis and Charlie White of the U.S. at the 2014 Winter Olympics. Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France are second at 75.60 and Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte of Italy third at 72.00.

“We had some work to do to bring our levels up for this competition and it was nice to get a couple of level fours,” said Moir from Ilderton, Ont. “It felt pretty similar to what we’ve been doing in training and it is exactly what we wanted to accomplish with our performance.”

Other Canadian results: Nam Nguyen of Toronto, Ont., and Elladj Baldé of Montreal, Que., were eighth and 10^th in the men’s competition and Alaine Chartrand of Prescott, Ont., was 10^th in the women’s competition.

The free dance is scheduled for 9:45 p.m. (EST) tonight and will be streamed live on cbc.ca.

Full results: ISU GP NHK Trophy 2016.