Skate Canada - Day 1

Day 1 in Kingston is a busy one with all disciplines competing. Although the action will continue until long after we Brits go to bed, I will do my best to keep everyone posted with updates.


Ladies
Sadly Sarah Meier had to withdraw after morning practice. She sprained her ankle training her triple lutz.
First skater out of the box was Agnes Zawadski - a relative unknown from the US making her senior debut after winning silver at the World Jr Champs last year. She laid down a great short programme scoring 56.29. Last week at NHK Carolina Kostner won the short with 57.27 and Kanako Murakami was 2nd with 56.10. Zawadski should place very well by the end of today.
Canadians Myriane Samson and Amelie Lacoste also put in clean performances to score 51.62 and 55.30 respectively.
Fumie Suguri (JPN) first competed at Skate Canada in 1998 - 12 YEARS AGO! she put out a decent performance with some underrotated jumps, putting her in 4th behind the two Canadians with a score of 48.17
Haruka Imai (JPN) Skated with great character and speed to a programme of gypsy music - scoring 52.52
Ksenia Makarova (Russia) hit her triple-triple competition and got the crowd on her side with a great flamenco programme. She goes into first with 57.90
Alissa Czisny (USA) had beautiful spins (as ever) but struggled fully rotating on some of her jumps (as ever). No falls but not quite the performance she may have hoped for - 55.95.
Cynthia Phaneuf (Canada) delighted the home crowd with her clean spanish programme, full of character and quality. She goes into the lead with 58.24.

So with less than 3 points separating the top 5 skaters - Skate Canada looks to be shaping up for a better competition than expected.
The top ladies after the short programme are-
Pairs
New Canadian pair Duhamel & Radford had an great GP debut. She doubled one of their side-by-side jumps but they performed well together for a new pair. 54.80
Young pairs Lawrence & Sweigers (Canada) and Castelli & Snapir (USA) gave impressive and fun performances.
The two highest ranking pairs coming into the competition, Kemp & King (GB) and Dong & Wu (China) underperformed badly and end up at the lower end of the rankings after underwelming performances.
The stars of the day were the young Russians Iliushechkina & Maisuradze (Whose names I always have a nightmare spelling!) who outclassed the field with difficulty and performance quality.


So the pairs standings are -

Mens
History was made in the Men's competition when Kevin Reynolds of Canada became the first man to land 2 quads (toe and salchow) in the short programme. Reynolds also has a THIRD quad (loop) in his arsenal. If he can further improve his transitions and maturity to match his jumps he could really be the cat amongst the pigeons on the World stage.
Canada's leading man, Patrick Chan however had less luck in the short programme with 3 falls, however the judges were still kind to him and he is currently still in 4th and not a million miles away from medal contension.
Nobunari Oda leads the men with a clean and difficult programme and Adam Rippon made a great season debut of his new Romeo and Juliet programme, currently in third.

Dance
It's super close in the Ice Dance stakes with the Kerrs leading Crone and Poirier by just 0.001 of a point going into the free dance. My patriotic wish for the Kerrs to finally win a grand prix gold is balanced by my love of C+P's youthful, fresh style. I'm going to sit on my fence and wish them both well!

Full Live Scores
Tweets from Patinaggio
Great live blogging from Flutzing Around