The ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships 2017 continued in Gangneung, Korea, Saturday with the Pairs and Ladies Free Skating. The Four Continents Championships 2017 serve as a test event for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games.
Wenjing Sui/Cong Han (CHN) skate off with Pairs gold
Wenjing Sui/Cong Han of China skated off with the Pairs gold. Canadians Meagan Duhamel/Eric Radford and Liubov Ilyushechkina/Dylan Moscovitch picked up the silver and bronze medals.
Performing to “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, Sui/Han produced a quadruple twist, a triple toe-double toe combination, throw triple Salchow and flip as well as level-four lifts. The only major error came when Sui fell on an underrotated triple Salchow. The two-time and reigning World silver medalists scored 144.28 points and totaled 225.03 points to win the fourth Four Continents title of their career. “It is a big honor for us to have won this title for the fourth time. But we got this medal not only for us, we owe it to everyone who is around us and helped us to come back. We were reborn in this championship. There were many challenges that we had to overcame and we are very happy we did that”, Han commented.
Duhamel/Radford’s program to “Non, je ne regretted rien” featured a triple twist, a triple Salchow and level-four lifts and spins, but Radford struggled with the triple Lutz combination while Duhamel touched down with both hands on the throw quadruple Salchow and stumbled on the throw triple Lutz. The reigning World Champions earned 137.92 points and moved up from third to second at 212.23 points. “I think today was one of those fighting skates for us which is kind of the feeling for us so far this season. Considering how were feeling going into this long program we’re both very proud of ourselves that we fought through and managed to stay on our feet and did some very good things. It’s always a bit of up and down through the season and we’ll take this as a step up towards the World Championship in March”, Radford told the post-event press conference.
Iliushechkina/Moscovitch completed a triple twist, triple toe-double toe combination, throw triple Lutz and difficult lifts in their routine to “When You Say You Love Me”. However, she fell on the throw triple loop. The National silver medalists set a new personal best for themselves with 132.27 points. They were ranked fourth in the Free Skating but nevertheless pulled up to third at 205.31 points. “We’re happy with how our free skate went. It was definitely an improvement, it was a big step for us to land the jumps in both programs. The program got a little bit away from us in the end, we stiffened up and I think that second throw mentally took off before it even was set up. We just have to work on collecting ourselves time and time again throughout the program”, Moscovitch explained.
Xiaoyu Yu/Hao Zhang (CHN) slipped from second to fourth at 202.92 points while Cheng Peng/Yang Jin (CHN) moved up from seventh to fifth (202.92 points). Alexa Scimeca Knierim/ Chris Knierim (USA) placed sixth (193.91 points).
The ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships 2017 continue Friday with the Free Dance and the Men’s Short Program. For more information, full entry lists and results please see:
www.isu.org and the official event website https://www.hellopyeongchang.com/FigureSkating/en/sub/index Hashtag: #4ContsFigure