Canadian ice dancers Weaver, Poje in contention at Rostelecom Cup

MOSCOW — Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje of Waterloo, Ont., were in third place after the short dance on Friday at the Rostelecom Cup, the third stop on the ISU Grand Prix figure skating circuit.

Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the U.S., the Skate Canada International silver medallists last week, led at 75.04, Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev of Russia were second at 74.92 while Weaver and Poje earned 69.81 with the debut of their Michael Jackson flavoured routine.

“We are very pleased with our performance,” Weaver said. “This is our first competition of the season for us and we underwent many changes through the summer including this brand new short dance. We came out today feeling calm and excited to perform.”

The Canadians skated a program that included three Michael Jackson tunes (“The Way You Make Me Feel,” “Dangerous” and “Jam”) and received an ovation from the crowd for their performance. Weaver and Poje will try to extend their Grand Prix event winning streak to seven in Saturday’s free dance.

“We were treated like hometown athletes from the crowd here,” Weaver said. “We had an error on our twizzle and lost points there but we are taking away a lot of positives. We can’t wait to show of our free skate.”

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Japan’s Shoma Uno unleashed two quad jumps to earn a strong lead after the men’s short program, putting him in position on Friday for his second grand prix gold of the season.

Uno, who this year became the first to execute a quad flip in international competition, opened his program with the jump, though he lost some points for putting his hand down on the landing. He followed it with a quad-triple toeloop combination.

With a 98.59 score, he was more than seven points ahead of world champion Javier Fernandez. The Spaniard stepped out of the final landing of a quad-triple toeloop combination. His appeared to be aiming for a quad salchow as his second jump, but managed only a triple.

Russia’s Mikhail Kolyada was third.

Elladj Balde of Pierrefonds, Que., produced a clean program but with no quad jump he is ranked sixth.

“The goal was to come here and skate clean,” he said. “That’s the way I’ve been skating every day at home. I broke the 37-point barrier for my components which shows that may skating’s improved.”

Russians Natalia Zabiiako and Alexander Enbert led the pairs by 0.25 points. Their short program featured a high triple twist and a solid triple-loop throw; they notched 6.76 points.

World championships bronze pair Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot of Germany outpointed them on program components, but both of them fell on their triple salchows and they ended the day in second place.

Italy’s Valentina Marchei and Ondrej Hotarek were third.

Julianne Seguin of Longueuil, Que., and Charlie Bilodeau of Trois-Pistoles, Que., were fifth after the short. Both skaters fell on the side-by-side jumps and Seguin touched one hand down on the throw.

“Of course it wasn’t our best,” said Seguin. “I expect we’ll come back much stronger tomorrow because our long program is more polished right now.”

— With files from The Associated Press

The Canadian Press

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