Injury forced Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir to interrupt their free dance yesterday, setting the stage for Meryl Davis/Charlie White to overtake them in the final standings. Davis/White's win at the 2013 Four Continents Championships closed out competition of the event in Osaka, Japan.
Free dance: Videos
After a mistake in their twizzle sequence left them in second after the short dance, Davis/White skated to a standing ovation in their free dance to move up and take their fifth consecutive title of the season, two of which have been over rivals and training mates Virtue/Moir. Their final score of 187.36 gave them a three-point win over the rest of the field.
Virtue/Moir, the leaders after the short dance, were looking strong in their free dance until leg cramps kept Virtue from going into a lift. The team decided to stop their free dance to recover, but the momentum they had in their performance was broken. A similar incident happened at NHK Trophy earlier this season when Maia Shibutani/Alex Shibutani also stopped midway through their free dance due to cramps.
Though they were fifth in the free dance, U.S. silver medalists Madison Chock/Evan Bates held on to win the bronze in the biggest competition of their career as a team, with teammates, the Shibutanis, in fourth. But it was Canadian silver medalists Piper Gilles/Paul Poirier who grabbed third in the free dance, though they were unable to make up the deficit they had in the short dance and finished fifth.
DANCE (final standings)
1. Meryl Davis/Charlie White USA - 187.36
2. Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir CAN - 184.32
3. Madison Chock/Evan Bates USA - 160.42
4. Maia Shibutani/Alex Shibutani USA - 159.97
5. Piper Gilles/Paul Poirier CAN - 157.83
6. Nicole Orford/Thomas Williams CAN - 139.10
7. Cathy Reed/Chris Reed JPN - 131.04
8. Danielle O'Brien/Gregory Merriman AUS - 123.88
9. Xiaoyang Yu/Chen Wang CHN - 108.82 VIDEO
10. Anna Nagornyuk/Viktor Kovalenko UZB - 107.02
11. Emi Hirai/Marien De La Asuncion JPN - 105.56
12. Bryna Oi/Taiyo Mizutani JPN - 89.80
13. Pilar Maekawa Moreno/Leonardo Maekawa Moreno MEX - 85.02
Comments