Regina / Canada

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Japan’s Shoma Uno cracked 300 points at Skate Canada International Saturday to claim the third Grand Prix gold medal of his career. Jason Brown (USA) earned the silver medal and Russia’s Alexander Samarin took the bronze in his debut at the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating.

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Performing to ‘Turandot’, Uno reeled off a quad loop, quad toe-triple toe combination and four clean triples including a triple Axel-triple flip combination, as well as two level-four spins. However, the World silver medalist fell out of an under-rotated quad toe, and two-footed his quad flip. The 19-year-old, who already has two ISU Grand Prix Final bronze medals to his name, collected 197.48 points and accumulated 301.10 points in total. “The overall performance in the Free Skating, like yesterday in the Short Program, is satisfactory at this point of the season,” Uno said. “But I really need to improve my stamina. The mistakes on the quad toe and flip happened because I lacked stamina.”

Brown produced six clean triples and exquisite spins and footwork in his routine to ‘Inner Love’, which was especially composed for him by Maxime Rodriguez. However, the 2015 U.S. Champion went down on an under-rotated quad toe. Brown scored 170.43 points and moved up one place at 261.14 points overall. “As of a whole this week, I’m really proud of the performances that I put out here,” he said. “I definitely had a couple of hiccups here and there but I kept the integrity of the programs and it’s nice to continue getting them out early on in this Grand Prix season.”

Samarin’s program to ‘House of the Rising Sun’ featured big jumps – a quad Lutz, quad toe and six triples. The 2017 World junior bronze medalist set a personal best with 166.04 points and totalled 250.06 points to take the bronze medal in his first senior Grand Prix event. “I am very happy with the result,” Samarin said. “Honestly, I did not expect to end up on the podium in my debut at the Grand Prix. I am very pleased to have landed the quad Lutz in both programs because not so long ago I felt uncomfortable with it. I need to work on my components especially. Luckily, I don’t have problems with the technical part.”

Canada’s three-time World Champion Patrick Chan fell on his opening quadruple toe and was unable to hold it together, doubling four jumps. It meant the 26-year-old missed out on the podium, dropping from second to fourth place (245.70 points). Jorik Hendrickx (BEL) came fifth with 237.31 points, followed by Michal Brezina (CZE) on 237.04 points.

Skate Canada International concludes Sunday with the Exhibition Gala and  is the second of six events in the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating series. The top six skaters/couples in each discipline qualify for the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final in Nagoya (JPN) in December. The global prize money for the Grand Prix is US$272,000. The series continues next week with the Audi Cup of China in Beijing.

Full entry lists and results of the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating 2017/18 are available here.  Follow the discussion on social media by using #GPFigure #FigureSkating