October 14, 2018
Canada wins two bronze medals at ISU Junior Grand Prix
Figure Skating – YEREVAN, Armenia – Canadians won two bronze medals on Saturday at the seventh stop on the ISU Junior Grand Prix figure skating circuit.
In men’s competition, Iliya Kovler of Richmond Hill, Ont., hung on to third place despite the fifth best free skate on Saturday with a personal best international score of 201.20 points. Adam Siao Him Fa of France took the gold at 205.83 and Yuma Kagiyama of Japan was second at 202.02.
‘’I felt like my free program was a big improvement on what I did in Richmond (at the fourth Grand Prix stop) ,’’ said Kovler, 15, second after the short program. ‘’I was able to learn a lot and gave it my all. I reached my goal here to do two clean skates and get improvements on my components.’’
Thirteen-year-old Alec Guinzbourg of Kingston, Ont., in his junior Grand Prix debut, was 11th out of 21 entries.
In ice dancing, there was no change in the top-three with Arina Ushakova and Maxim Nekrasov of Russia first at 172.81, Masia Kazakova and Georgy Riviya of Georgia second at 164.65 and Ellie Fisher and Simon-Pierre Malette-Paquette of Montreal third at 152.46. The Canadians were fifth at last week’s stop in Slovenia.
‘’It was definitely difficult to do two competitions back-to-back,’’ said Malette-Paquette. ‘’But at the same time it was good preparation keeping the high intensity in training throughout the week.’’
The couple was also feeling sore after a collision before Friday’s short dance in the warm-up.
‘’We had to fight for this one,’’ said Malette-Paquette.
Emmy Bronsard and Aissa Bouaraguia of Montreal made an impressive jump from ninth to sixth overall with the sixth best free dance at 138.73.
This was the last junior event before the Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final set for December 6-9 in Vancouver.
Full results: ISU JGP Armenian Cup 2018