Figure Ice Skating – ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final – Ice Dance Free Dance – Nagoya, Japan – December 9, 2017. France’s Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron are seen in action. REUTERS/Issei Kato
December 9, 2017
NAGOYA, Japan (Reuters) – Russian teenager Alina Zagitova took gold in the women’s skate at her debut Grand Prix Final on Saturday, while French ice dancers Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron ended the winning streak of Canadian team Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir.
Zagitova, 15, won with a total of 223.30 for a season’s best with a jump-laden routine to “Don Quixote.”
“There were a number of small mistakes but they weren’t that big a deal. I’m very happy to have won at the Grand Prix,” she said.
Fellow Russian Maria Sotskova came second with 216.28 while Canadian Kaetlyn Osmond came third.
In ice dancing, the French team edged ahead of Virtue and Moir with an elegant, passionate routine to “Moonlight Sonata,” winning with 202.16 to 199.86 for the Canadians.
Two-time Olympians Virtue and Moir, who topped the podium in Vancouver in 2010, had racked up win after win since their return to competition with Skate Canada 2016. At Skate Canada this year they set a new record score.
“We’re relieved that it’s done,” Cizeron told a news conference. “We had a good skate.”
Germany’s Aljona Savchenko and Bruno Massot took gold for pairs with an ambitious, elegiac free skate to “La Terre Vue du Ciel” by Armand Amar, snagging a season’s best 236.68 overall. China’s Wenjing Sui and Cong Han won silver with 230.89 after a wobble on a triple Salchow, while Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford of Canada came third with 210.83.
(Reporting by Elaine Lies; editing by Clelia Oziel)
