Weaver and Poje win bronze at world championships

SHANGHAI – Ice dancers Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje of Waterloo, Ont., won the bronze medal on Friday at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships.

It was Canada’s second medal of the competition. On Thursday Meagan Duhamel of Lively, Ont., and Eric Radford of Balmertown, Ont., took gold in pairs.

In Friday’s ice dance, Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France roared from fourth after the short dance to win the gold with 184.28 points. Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the U.S. took the silver at 181.34 and Weaver and Poje followed at 179.42.

“We were very happy with the performance today, we went out there and gave it all we had,” said Poje. “We were disappointed with our scores because we were aiming for another gold.”

Weaver and Poje entered the worlds undefeated this season. They won three ISU Grand Prix events including the Final, the Canadian championships and the ISU Four Continents.

“This sport is a marathon, not a sprint,” said Weaver. “This is the first year of a four-year Olympic cycle and the momentum will not be lost. It makes us hungrier to work even harder.”

Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Toronto were sixth and Alexandra Paul and Mitchell Islam of Barrie,Ont., 13th.

“It’s really great for us to get a season’s best in both programs and improve on our eighth place from last year,” said Poirier. “We just allowed ourselves to relax and let our training do the work for us.”

In the men’s short program, Nam Nguyen of Toronto set a personal best international score to stand ninth while Jeremy Ten of Vancouver is 15th

“It’s really enjoyable to perform in front of a big crowd,” said Nguyen. “It’s very cool for me to communicate my program to them.”

Competition ends Saturday with the men’s and women’s free skates.

Full results: http://www.isuresults.com/results/wc2015/index.htm