Two bronze medals for Canada at Finlandia Trophy

ESPOO, Finland – New pairs partners Lubov Ilyushechkina of Toronto and Charlie Bilodeau of Trois-Pistoles, Que., won the bronze medal in their competitive debut on Saturday and Roman Sadovsky of Vaughn, Ont. was also third in men’s singles at the Finlandia Open figure skating competition.

The competition is the sixth stop of the 2019 ISU Challenger Series, a tune-up for the Grand Prix season which starts next week in Las Vegas with Skate America.

It was a 1-2 Russian finish in pairs as Anastasia Mishina and Aleksandr Galliamov took the gold with 194.28 points. Alisa Efimova and Alexander Korovin were second at 194.28 and Ilyushechkina and Bilodeau followed at 193.58.

“For a first ever international competition together with only seventh months training we couldn’t have hoped for better,” said Bilodeau, ninth at the 2018 Olympic Games with his former partner Julianne Séguin. “It really sets us up well to improve even more in training and do better at our next event.”

“We were nervous but it was exciting,” added Ilyushechkina, who earned two top-10 world championship performances with former partner Dylan Moscovitch. “It was very satisfying to put out two well skated programs.”

Evelyn Walsh of London, Ont., and Trennt Michaud of Trenton, Ont., move from eighth to sixth with 151.72 out of 11 entries.

In men’s competition, Olympic silver medallist Shoma Uno of Japan won the gold with 255.23. His compatriot Sota Yamamoto was second at 223.24 just ahead of Sadovsky at 222.23

“The short program was the best I’ve ever done but the long could have been better,” said Sadovsky.

In ice dancing, world junior champions Marjorie Lajoie Boucherville, Que., and Zachary Lagha of Saint-Hubert, Que., are in fourth place after the rhythm dance at 70.75. That is 0.61 points better than their score at the world juniors last winter.

Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the U.S. lead at at 78.80, Betina Popova and Sergey Mozgov of Russia are second at 72.11 and Shiyue Wang and Xinyu Liu of China third at 71.68.

Gabrielle Daleman of Newmarket, Ont., is 15th after the women’s short program.

Competition ends Sunday with the free dance and women’s free skate.

Full results: CS Finlandia Trophy Espoo 2019

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