Canadian juniors win Grand Prix gold

BARCELONA – Julianne Séguin of Longueuil, Que., and Charlie Bilodeau Trois-Pistoles, Que., broke their Canadian record and won the gold medal in junior pairs on Friday at the ISU Grand Prix final figure skating competition.

Séguin and Bilodeau, only in their second season together, totalled a national junior mark 175.57 points to remain undefeated this season in three competitions. They finished ahead of four Russian pairs including Lina Fedorova and Maxim Miroshkin in second at 165.78.

‘’We’ve paid attention to the small details in our skating and that’s made a big difference,’’ said Séguin.  ‘’It’s a program that we’ve worked hard on and we can just let ourselves be carried by the music once we get on the ice.’’

In the senior short dance, Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje of Waterloo, Ont., posted a season’s best score for 71.34 for first spot.  Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the U.S. are second at 65.06 and their compatriots Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani third at 63.90.

‘’We nailed our levels and the performance aspects,’’ said Weaver.  ‘’Everything from our last competition (two weeks ago at the Grand Prix in Japan) improved.  We still left points on the table and have room to grow for the second half of the season.’’

Poje sees the Final as a mid-term exam.

‘’We are looking to get momentum going into the second half of the season by bettering our performances every time out,’’ said Poje.  ‘’We want to get everything solidified for the second half of the season and we achieved that with the short dance.’’

Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Toronto are fourth after a season’s best 62.49.

‘’This program just keeps getting better with every outing,’’ said Poirier.  ‘’It’s really nice for us at the last two competitions to not have any major mistakes.  We are really comfortable with it and we just need to polish it up some more.’’

In junior ice dancing, Mackenzie Bent of Uxbridge, Ont., and Garrett MacKeen of Oshawa, Ont.,took fourth while Madeline Edwards of Port Moody, B.C., and ZhaoKai Pang of Burnaby, B.C., were fifth. Anna Yanovskaya and Sergey Mozgov led a Russian medal sweep.

Bent and Uxbridge were just over three points from the podium.

‘’We felt really strong with every step we took and that was our goal,’’ said Bent.  ‘’There was nothing to lose for us and we wanted to fight for that medal.  It was a great experience for us.’’

In men’s junior competition, Shoma Uno led Japan to a 1-2 finish while Roman Sadovsky of Vaughan, Ont., produced a clean free skate which received a rousing ovation from the crowd.  He climbed from sixth to fifth overall.

‘’I felt like I redeemed myself after a rough short progam,’’ said Sadovsky.  ‘’I think I learned that I need to relax more during my skate and take one element at a time and not let any mistakes affect me.  I started with a clean slate today.’’

Competition ends Saturday with the four free skates for seniors.

NOTE:Skate Canada Communications Director, Barb MacDonald, will be the media contact at the event.

Full results: http://www.isuresults.com/results/gpf1415/