Canada's Stellato-Dudek, Deschamps win pairs event at figure skating Grand Prix

HELSINKI — Canada's Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps topped the podium in the pairs event in Grand Prix figure skating action on Sunday.

The reigning world champions finished with a total of 207.44 points after the free skate. It's the second victory of the season for Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps, who also won at the Skate Canada International in Halifax.

“We made some improvements from Skate Canada,” said Stellato-Dudek of their revised program. “We changed the order of the elements which seemed to be received better and felt better.

"We’re still having some technical problems so we’re going to have to go back and work on them, but everything, short and long, was better than our last outing which is all we can ask for.”

Hungary's Maria Pavlova and Alexei Sviatchenko earned silver (184.21) and Italy's Rebecca Ghilardi and Filippo Ambrosini grabbed bronze (181.59). Fellow Canadians Kelly Ann Laurin of St-Jerome, Que., and Loucas Éthier of St-Alphonse, Que., took fourth (178.57).

In the ice dance, Canadian duo Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier won silver with a score of 200.79.

The ice dance competition got off to a strong start for Gilles, from Toronto, and Poirier of Unionville, Ont., who were sitting in first following the rhythm dance. However, they had some issues with their free dance which gave them fourth-place scores and dropped them to second.

“Today was a disappointing performance,” said Poirier following their free dance. “We didn’t perform the way we wanted to, and we made a few mistakes, so not the skate that we wanted. But we just have to take it as a learning opportunity as we head into the rest of the season.”

Great Britain's Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson won the event (203.22), while Finland's Juulia Turkkila and Matthias Versluis placed third (196.60).

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 17, 2024.

The Canadian Press