The Albany Gazette - Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps defend Skate Canada pairs title

The Canadian duo took Friday's short programme with 73.23 points and scored 124.10 points from judges in the free skate at Halifax, Nova Scotia.

That was enough to give them gold with a total of 197.33 points ahead of Uzbekistan's Ekaterina Geynish and Dmitrii Chigirev, who topped the free skate with 126.12 points.

That lifted the Uzbek duo, fourth after the short programme, into second overall on 189.65 with Australians Anastasia Golubeva and Hektor Giotopoulos Moore third overall on 186.14.

Reigning world champion Ilia Malinin of the United States led the men's short programme earlier Saturday with a superb performance.

Malinin, who won a third consecutive Skate America title last week, took the opening skate with 106.22 points with Japan's Shun Sato second on 96.52 and Japan's Sota Yamamoto third on 92.16 entering Sunday's free skate final.

Malinin, a 19-year-old from suburban Washington, won last year's ISU Grand Prix Final at Shanghai and then took his first world men's crown at Montreal last March with a world-record free skate point total.

Sato, 20, is a former world junior champion whose world junior record score was broken by Malinin in 2022.

Canada's Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, the 2024 world ice dance runners-up seeking a fifth consecutive Skate Canada crown, grabbed the lead after Saturday's rhythm dance with 86.44 points.

Canadians Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha were second on 77.34 with France's Evgeniia Lopareva and Geoffrey Brissaud third on 76.76 entering Sunday's free dance final.

The women's free skate final will be conducted later on Saturday with three-time reigning world champion Kaori Sakamoto of Japan battling 19-year-old American Alysa Liu, in her first Grand Prix event since 2021.

Sakamoto, the defending Skate Canada champion, won Friday's short programme with 74.97 points. Liu was second on 67.68 after ending a two-year retirement last March.

Four-time Japanese champion Sakamoto, a 24-year-old from Kobe, took women's bronze and team silver at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

Liu, who made a triumphant return from retirement two weeks ago in Budapest, was the first American woman to land a quadruple jump in competition and won the 2019 and 2020 US national titles at ages 13 and 14.

She finished sixth at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and third at the 2022 world championships then retired.

The six-event ISU Grand Prix series continues next month in France, Japan, Finland and Canada leading to the Grand Prix Final in December at Grenoble, France.

(F.Jackson--TAG)