Oct 28, 2017; Regina, Saskatchawan, CAN; Maria Sotskova (RUS) (left) and Kaetlyn Osmond (CAN) (middle) and Ashley Wagner (USA) (right) on the podium after ladies free skating during the 2017 Skate Canada International figure skating competition at Brandt Centre. Sergei Belski-USA TODAY Sports
October 29, 2017
(Reuters) – Kaetlyn Osmond landed several difficult jumps to overcome two stumbles during her long routine and win gold at the Skate Canada International in Regina, Saskatchewan on Saturday.
Less than four months before the Winter Olympics, the Canadian world silver medalist entered the final day of the competition with a comfortable lead after dazzling the home crowd with a near perfect short routine on Friday.
On Saturday she landed a double axel-triple toe, a triple Lutz and two more triples, making up for a stumble at the outset of the routine and a fall toward the end.
The 21-year-old scored 136.85 points for the long routine and won the competition with 212.91 points overall.
“Very proud with my (Skate Canada 2017) experience,” she wrote on Twitter.
“It wasn’t perfect. But it’s a long season, so there is a lot left to come.”
Russia’s Maria Sotskova claimed silver with 192.52 overall points and American Ashley Wagner took the bronze with 183.94.
On the men’s side, Japan’s world silver medalist Shoma Uno topped of the podium after nailing his difficult long routine.
He ended the competition with 301.10 points, nearly 40 points ahead of silver medalist American Jason Brown.
It marks the fourth time that Uno has gone over the 300-point mark in international competition.
Russian Alexander Samarin took bronze with 250.06 points while hometown favorite Canadian Patrick Chan missed the podium, coming in fourth with 245.70 total points.
“My stamina is lacking” the 19-year-old Uno said after winning his first Grand Prix title of the season with his performance to “Turandot” by Giacomo Puccini.
Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford won gold in the pairs competition with 222.22 overall points.
German’s Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot (215.66) took silver while France’s Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres (214.37)took bronze.
Skate Canada is the second of six qualifying events for the Grand Prix Final in Nagoya, Japan in December.
(Reporting by Rory Carroll; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
