HALIFAX — Reigning world champions Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps rocked the house and placed first in the pairs short program at Skate Canada International on Friday.
“Going out there, being in front of our home crowd, for the first time since Worlds — that was great,” Deschamps said. “We did a lot of stuff that we improved since the last competition, and we’re happy with that.”
“I actually noticed the difference in volume from our announcement versus everybody else’s,” Stellato-Dudek added about the crowd. “It was that noticeable. But yeah, I mean, I felt stressed, and just wanted to do well.”
A minor stumble on their throw triple loop prevented them from reaching their goal of “high 70s,” but they still took a significant lead going into the free program.
The Canadians posted a score of 73.23 to kick off their second competition of the season while skating to a remix of Beyonce’s “Crazy In Love” at Scotiabank Centre.
Annika Hocke and Robert Kunkel of Germany finished second (64.82) and Anastasia Golubeva and Hektor Giotopoulos Moore of Australia were third (64.81).
Kelly Ann Laurin of Saint-Jerome, Que., and Loucas Ethier of St-Alphonse, Que., ranked last in the eight-team competition (52.16).
Later Friday, Kaori Sakamoto of Japan led after the women’s program. The three-time world champion scored 74.97 ahead of Alysa Liu of the U.S. (67.68) and Kimmy Repond of Switzerland (66.94).
Madeline Schizas of Oakville, Ont., finished fifth, falling just shy of the top three with 65.28 after a joyful, error-free skate to music from “The Lion King.”
Calgary’s Kaiya Ruiter was seventh (57.66) while Montreal’s Sara-Maude Dupuis placed ninth (54.15) in the 12-skater field.
The rhythm dance and men’s short take place Saturday afternoon, followed by the pairs and women’s free programs in the evening. The competition wraps up Sunday afternoon with the men’s free program and the free dance.
The Grand Prix, the top series in figure skating, consists of six events and a final. Skate Canada is the second of the event this year after the circuit kicked off at Skate America last week.
Check out our sports section for the latest news and analysis.