Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps captivate crowd and win gold in Halifax
Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps delivered a stunning performance in pairs to cruise to a gold medal at the Skate Canada International in Halifax on Saturday.
The reigning world champs in pairs left no doubt as they scored 197.33 points to claim gold. They were separated by nearly eight points from runners-up Ekaterina Geynish and Dmitrii Chigirev of Uzbekistan, and were over ten points ahead of Anastasia Golubeva / Hektor Giotopolous Moore of Australia who claimed third place.
The pair is off to an impressive start in the ISU Grand Prix. They scored a silver medal performance at the first ISU Challenger Series event in September to open their season, and have now added a gold.
Kelly Ann Laurin and Loucas Ethier, also competing in pairs for Canada, finished in eighth place.
Despite the result, Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps were critical of their performance following the event.
“A little disappointed with the skate. I’m not really sure what happened,” Stellato-Dudek told CBC in an interview. “We got to go back to the drawing board and only upward from here.”
Action will continue from Halifax Saturday night with the ice dance as three Canadian duos will compete. Fan favourites Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier will be joined by Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha, who have previously won a medal at the Halifax stop, and Alicia Fabbri and Paul Ayer will round out the three pairs.
Sunday’s events will include the men’s and women’s competition.