FIGURE SKATING Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir (CAN) recaptured the dance title in the roles of Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire to the “Funny Face” soundtrack. Defending champions Meryl Davis/Charlie White (USA) danced to the silver medal to “Die Fledermaus”. Nathalie Pechalat/ Fabian Bourzat (FRA) overcame her broken nose to claim the bronze medal, their first World medal. Kaitlyn Weaver/Andrew Poje (CAN) finished fourth and Elena Ilinykh/Nikita Katsalapov (RUS) came fifth.
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world synchronized skating championships The 13th edition of the ISU World Synchronized Skating Championships returned to the city of Goteborg in Sweden. The Championships were last in Sweden in 2005 and this year 21 Teams from 16 countries competed for the title. With only 2,62 points separating the top five teams in the final result these Championships have been one of the tightest in history. Team Surprise (Sweden 1) took the gold medal in front of their home crowd bringing their sixth World Championships victory after previous wins in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2007. The silver medalists Nexxice (Canada 1) delivered a solid performance and the Haydenettes (USA 1) took the bronze. The winners of the Free Skate, the Rockettes (Finland 2) missed the podium by 0,03 points and finished fourth while the leaders of the short program, Paradise (Russia 1), had a fall in their Free Program which put them in fifth place. The ISU World Synchronized Skating Championships 2013 will be held in Boston, USA.
isu world team trophy in figure skating The second edition of the ISU World Team Trophy in Figure Skating was a big success in the Yoyogi National Stadium in Tokyo (JPN). The top six national teams of the 2011/12 season qualified for the event: Japan, Canada, Russia, USA, France and for the first time, Italy. Team Japan took the gold medals with 55 points, beating defending champions Team USA who obtained 53 points. Team Canada edged out Team France for the bronze medals on a tie-breaker (42 points). Daisuke Takahashi (JPN) set new personal best scores in both segments and posted a new Short Program record of 94.00 points to win the Men’s category followed by World Champion Patrick Chan (CAN) and Brian
Narumi Takahashi and Mervin Tran (JPN)
Joubert (FRA). World bronze medalist Akiko Suzuki (JPN) upset World Champion Carolina Kostner (ITA) and won the Ladies’ event. World bronze medalists Narumi Takahashi/Mervin Tran (JPN) finished third in the Pairs category. World silver medalists Meryl Davis /Charlie White (USA) led their team with their win in the Ice Dance category and beat World Champions Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir (CAN). Ashley Wagner (USA) contributed with her third-place finish to the success of the team. Team Canada took three second-places in the three categories and pulled up to third on the
final day. In addition to Chan and Virtue/Moir, pair skaters Meagan Duhamel/Eric Radford came second. Team France lost the bronze to Canada as their two best placements were third in Ice Dance with Nathalie Pechalat/Fabian Bourzat (FRA) and Joubert. Team Russia was ranked fifth at 39 points and overtook Team Italy on the tie-breaker thanks to Vera Bazarova/ Yuri Larionov’s win in the Pairs. The next ISU World Team Trophy will be held in 2013. A slightly different format of the team event will be part of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi (RUS) for the first time.