Canadians Weaver, Poje defend ice dancing title at GP Final

Canadian ice dancers Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje maintained their unbeaten run this season by successfully defending their title at the ISU Grand Prix Final of figure skating on Saturday.

The world bronze medallists, fresh from Grand Prix wins at Skate Canada and the Cup of Russia, extended their lead after Friday's short dance to seal a convincing victory in the free dance final in Barcelona.

Their free dance to "On the Nature of Daylight" by Max Richter and "Run" by Ludovico Einaudi earned them their season's best 109.91 points for an overall total of 182.66 points.

"Andrew and I feel very fulfilled with tonight's performance," said Weaver.

"Although the technical aspect can always be better we skated with our hearts which was lacking in Russia. We were connected and felt great to be out there."

Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates had to settle for silver for the second straight year in Barcelona, finishing 5.11 points behind, with Italians Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte winning bronze a further 1.18 back.
It was the sixth straight victory for Weaver and Poje on the Grand Prix circuit over the past two seasons.

And US-born Weaver admitted it was not easy being the defending champions.

"The last two Grand Prix Finals have been so different, the only thing that's been the same is Barcelona," said Weaver.

"Last year we were so shocked to walk home with the title, this year we knew it would be a battle. We weren't thinking about the title.

"It's amazing but it's a long season and we'll have to forget about this and move on and think about the rest of the season."
-- 'mistakes apparent' --

Chock and Bates, the current world silver medallists, presented their revamped programme to Rachmaninov's 'Concerto No.2 Adagio' but it failed to pull them ahead although they scored their season's best 105.91 for a total of 177.55.

"We've changed about 50 percent in the last three to four weeks that it feels like a new programme," said Bates.

"Being in the Grand Prix Final you're expected to be perfect but with three weeks training we knew that some of the mistakes were apparent.

"We're trying to fix those for the second part of the season."

Cappellini and Lanotte skated a fast-moving routine to "La Dolce Vita" for which they earned the second highest score of 106.23 for the free skate and 176.37 overall.

It was the first Grand Prix Final medal for the 2014 world and European champions whose season had been thrown into turmoil with Lanotte suffering from a hernia which could require surgery at any time.

"Motivation-wise it was difficult and took a moment to get there, but we managed to discover that we love what we do and want to continue to enjoy it and see how far we can go," said Cappellini.

For the first time three US couples made it into the final with Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani fourth (174.92) ahead of Russians Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev (166.73) with Americans Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue (163.20) completing the elite six-team event.

World champions Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France did not qualify and they skipped the GP season after she suffered concussion in a training fall last August.

They will return at the French nationals on December 17-18 before competing in the European championships in Bratislava in January and worlds in Boston next March.

Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov of Russia won the pair's title on Friday with the competition concluding later Saturday with the men's and women's free skates.
Source :AFP