Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon won their fifth ice dancing title, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir were a solid second and Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje were a surprise third at the Canadian figure skating championships Sunday.

Dubreuil revealed afterwards that she and Lauzon were nearly forced to withdraw before competition began.

Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon perform their free dance program at the national championships in Halifax on Sunday. (Andrew Vaughan/Canadian Press)

The 32-year-old Montrealer was affected by a virus about 10 days ago in Lyon, France, where she and Lauzon train. She was sick and still has a cough.

"I still trained but I was very weak," she said of the days leading up to the scheduled Tuesday flight from Lyon.

She started having dizzy spells. "Every time I turned my head I had vertigo, and it was horrible," she said.

She didn't realize she had an inner ear problem.

"I kept trying to train," Dubreuil said. "I was so dizzy that at one point I almost fainted because of the vertigo. I fell and sprained my [left] knee and my ankle [on Monday].

"Monday night I wasn't sure I was going to come but at the last minute I found a doctor who specializes in inner ear. He did a manipulation to fix it. For 48 hours I had to sleep sitting up. I couldn't move my head. The first practices here I couldn't do any head movements. I could barely walk on my leg.

"I had a really hard time dealing with this and training at the same time."

Yet, there was no doubt they were going to win a fourth straight national title and fifth overall. After all, they are the world silver medallists.

"My leg was a little shaky but I'll take care of it," said Dubreuil. "The main thing for us is to be at our peak at worlds and not here at Canadians.

"In past years we've been at our peak at Canadians and after them it was hard to continue to build up. We're satisfied with what we did here. We took a lot of pleasure out of skating here and we gave a lot of pleasure to the people watching."

Added Lauzon: "There were little mistakes here and there, stuff we still have to work on for worlds, but we knew coming here that we will be expected to give a perfect performance at worlds so everything until then is just a buildup."

Three world ice dance berths

Canada has three ice dance berths for the world championships in Tokyo, March 19-25. Skate Canada announced during a news conference that the medallists Sunday will get the trip.

Virtue, 17, of London, Ont., and Moir, 19, of Ilderton, Ont., were third at the senior level nationally last season and won the world junior crown. Tokyo will be their first senior world championship.

"We are very satisfied," Moir said of their showing through the three phases of the ice dance competition. "We thought all three of our skates were solid performances and we're looking to continue building during the next competitions."

Silver looked good on them.

"It was definitely one of our goals coming in and we're just so happy to have put down three great performances," said Virtue.

They've got what it takes to one day win a world senior championship.

"We're hoping we can keep building and keep this momentum," said Moir.

Weaver, 17, and Poje, 19, only began skating together five months ago so winning bronze Sunday was a complete surprise.

She's from Texas. She moved to Connecticut at age 13 for the coaching she needed to further her skating career. He's from Kitchener, Ont. Their previous partners quit competing last year.

"We both thought our seasons were shot this year," said Weaver.

Word on the coaching grapevine was that they were two exceptional teen ice dancers looking for a partner and they had a tryout.

"I went to Kitchener thinking, 'Oh, well, I don't know what's going to happen or if this is going to work out but I'm not doing anything right now so I might as well try out with him and we'll see.' It turned out to be great," said Weaver.

She last competed for the United States in October 2005 and had to wait one year before she was eligible to represent Canada.

The okay took effect last Oct. 10 — one day before a Junior Grand Prix meet in Taiwan where they won bronze. They also were third at a Jr. GP in the Czech Republic, and arrived in Halifax figuring they'd fit in about seventh or eighth place in the final standings.

They could hardly believe they finished third, but deserved it.

"It was hard work and dedication because we've been together only five months," said Poje.

"It's a really great accomplishment for us," said Weaver.

She has applied for Canadian citizenship and hopes to be at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics with her new partner.

"This is a really big stepping stone for us," she said.

Closing-day attendance was 4,306. The nationals will be in Vancouver's Pacific Coliseum next January.