Canada’s Moore-Towers, Marinaro win pairs bronze at Four Continents competition

Feb 8, 2020 | 7:43 AM

SEOUL, Korea, Republic Of — Canadians Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro won the bronze medal in pairs on Saturday at the Four Continents figure skating competition.

China took gold and silver with two-time world champions Wenjing Sui and Cong Han first with 217.51 points and Cheng Peng and Yang Jin second at 213.29.

Moore-Towers and Marinaro, first after Thursday’s short program, made mistakes on both their side-by-side triple jumps and dropped to third with 201.80.

“It was rough for us,” said Moore-Towers, from St. Catharines, Ont. “We don’t perform like this in training so it’s a bit of a head scratcher. We’ve been practising really well so it’s become apparent we need to translate that into competition. We’ll take some good lessons from this competition.”

Evelyn Walsh of London, Ont., and Trennt Michaud of Trenton, Ont. were sixth and first-year partnership Lubov Ilyushechkina of Toronto and Charlie Bilodeau of Trois-Pistoles, Que., were seventh.

“We were happy to work together and get through it all,” said Michaud. “Nothing came easily today but that’s all part of the journey.

In women’s competition, Rika Kihira of Japan won the gold with Young You of South Korea second and Bradie Tennell of the United States third.

Alicia Pineault of Varennes, Que., was 10th, Alison Schumacher of Tecumseh, Ont., climbed from 18th to 14th and Vancouver’s Emily Bausback was 15th.

“I was able to stay focused during the entire program,” said Pineault. “I tried to go for the jumps even though I didn’t feel like it’s wasn’t going to be perfect.”

“I focused on the feeling of my jumps and didn’t get too caught up in results,” said Schumacher. “I can only do my job.”

Competition ends Sunday with the men’s free skate.

 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 8, 2020.

The Canadian Press