MasterCard Skate Canada concluded Sunday with the Free Dance and the Exhibition Gala.
Skate Canada was the second of six qualifying events of the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating series.

Ice Dancing, Free Dance
Current World silver medalists Albena Denkova/Maxim Staviski of Bulgaria danced to their first Skate Canada gold medal while Canadians Marie-France Dubreuil/Patrice Lauzon claimed the silver. Galit Chait/Sergei Sakhnovski (ISR) took the bronze medal, their second Grand Prix medal in their second event this season.
Denkova/Staviski had chosen an unusual mixture of African rhythms and classical motives by Johann Sebastian Bach named “Bach to Africa” by Lambarena. The two-time European silver medalists produced an interesting and technically demanding program, earning the highest level four for four of their five lifts. One lift was a curve-rotational combination with changes of position for both partners. The team also produced a combination spin in a low position and they linked their elements with innovative transitions. Denkova/Staviski were awarded 42.90 points for their elements and 63.71 for program components which added up to a segment score of 106.61. They won with an overall event score of 208.92 points. “We’re glad to have won this competition. I did a small mistake (on a twizzle), but the public liked our program. We’re very happy to have won this gold medal. It’s our first at Skate Canada after seven or six times that we participated”, Staviski said. “We tried to make all our elements of the highest level. They weren’t, but we’ll work on it”, he announced.
Dubreuil/Lauzon’s Free Dance on an native Indian theme featured impressive lifts as well as two level 3 step sequences, but they slowed down in the footwork. The Canadian Champions also performed well synchronized twizzles in both directions to receive a segment score of 103.89 (43.20/60.69). “Our main goal today was to succeed each element, and we did. So it was a good confidence boost for the rest of the season”, Dubreuil explained. “The crowd really seemed to get into it, and it was a great feeling to skate well in Halifax.”
Skating to a modern arrangement of “Toccata and Fugue”, Chait/Sakhnovski delivered a dynamic performance, executing level four twizzles and strong lifts, including a serpentine lift in which Sakhnovski skated backwards on one foot while balancing his partner. The 2002 World bronze medalists scored 102.18 points for their Free Dance (42.60/59.58). With a total score of 200.97, they overtook Isabelle Delobel/Olivier Schoenfelder (FRA) to claim the bronze.
The French dropped on spot after they made some small errors on their serpentine lift and one set of the twizzles (199.19 points).
 “I was eccstatic”, Chait commented on her reaction when the scores and the results came up. “We’re very happy with the medal and happy that we now skated two competitions clean. We’ll make some changes for the Cup of China and hope to have a medal there as well. We changed two or three elements in the free and the OD, and we still have something to change, so there is still work to be done. Maybe we’ll add more technical difficulty to the circular and to the diagonal (footwork)”.

MasterCard Skate Canada was a scoring event for all three medalists. Denkova/Staviski took 12 points and are heading to the NHK Trophy in Nagoya, Japan next week. Dubreuil/Lauzon have 9 points while Chait/Sakhnovski earned 7 points. Both the Canadian and the Israeli teams will compete and score again at the Cup of China in Beijing.

For full results and Grand Prix standings please see: www.isu.org. The ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating continues next week in Nagoya, Japan, with the NHK Trophy.

Results