Canadian champions Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon may have cost themselves a gold medal at skating's Grand Prix Final by fiddling with their program.
A somewhat tired Dubreuil missed a key element in the free dance of their new program, resulting in a second-place finish for the ice dancers in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Canada's Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon perform their free dance program in St. Petersburg, Russia.
(Sergey Ponomarev/Associated Press)
World champions Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviski of Bulgaria took gold with a free dance program to a modern arrangement of Mozart's Requiem.
Third place went to Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin of Russia.
"[We've been under] a lot of stress and we were a little bit tired," said Dubreuil. "We kept changing elements almost until we got here. I think it played a little bit with our nerves."
The original dance performed by Dubreuil and Lauzon is not the same one that helped them prevail at Skate Canada last month in Victoria.
With an eye toward the world championships in March, they opted to go with a different routine for their second GP meet, which they won two weeks ago in Nagano, Japan.
"Our main goal is to win the world championship [in Tokyo]," said Dubreuil. "We're going to strategically build and train so that we're at our highest level in March."
France's Joubert victorious in men's free skate
On the men's side, France's Brian Joubert won by reeling off one quad and seven triples while U.S. national champion Johnny Weir withdrew because of a hip injury.
Joubert was followed by Nobunari Oda and Daisuke Takahashi, both of Japan. Alban Preaubert of France was fourth in a field that shrank from the original six.
Joubert's free skate to cello renditions of heavy metal music was the same routine he performed at last month's Cup of Russia, when he completed three quads. This time it was only one, and that was less than clean, with Joubert putting his hand out upon landing.
The Frenchman tripled a planned quad Salchow that was to be the next jump and later fell on a quad toe loop.
Kim Yu-na, a 16-year-old South Korean in her first year on the seniors circuit, captured the women's gold after mistakes by two Japanese rivals.
Japan's Mao Asada won the silver and Switzerland's Sarah Meier took the bronze.
Meanwhile, Valerie Marcoux of Gatineau, Que., and Craig Buntin of Kelowna, B.C., placed third in pairs, won by China's Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo.
Each gold medal in the final is worth $25,000 US.
With files from the Canadian Press
