Figure skating2 medals and a fairytale ending for Canada

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The 2010 ISU world figure skating championships wrapped up over the weekend in Turin, Italy, with some great results for Canada and some interesting twists along the way.

Yu-Na Kim, the Olympic champion and defending world champion from Korea, made three serious and uncharacteristic errors in the women's short program to end up in seventh place. In the same short program, rival Mao Asada, the Olympic silver medallist from Japan skated a solid program, but ended up in second place. The surprise short program leader was American teenager Mirai Nagasu, who posted a season's best performance.

The gloves came off in the free program and Kim was able to climb on to the podium and take the silver by virtue of winning the free program. Asada attempted two triple Axels in her free program only to have the second one in combination downgraded, which was the only snag in her performance.  The outcome was a strong enough score to take her second title in three years.  The bronze medal went to Laura Lepisto, which put a Finnish skater on the podium at worlds for the first time in singles skating. 

Honourable mention in the women's event has to go to Canadian national silver medallist Cynthia Phaneuf who was able to finally put performance jitters to rest and skate to her potential with the fourth-highest free skate score, moving her from eighth after the short program to fifth overall. American Nagasu wound up seventh overall. 

Takahashi near perfect

In the men's event, I wondered if Olympic bronze men's medallist from Daisuke Takahashi of Japan would falter under the pressure and I couldn't have been more wrong. 

Confident and secure, Takahashi earned top marks in both the short and free programs to take his first world title and along the way attempted the very first quad flip ever in a competition during his free program. 

Patrick Chan, Canada's three-time national champion showed that the intervening three weeks since the Olympic Games had been put to very good training use and he looked to be in the best form he had been all season. His tenacity and hard work paid off and he was able to claim his second straight world silver medal. 

France's Brian Joubert, the 2007 world champion, had a great short program and followed it up with a solid free skate to stay in third place and take his second straight world bronze medal. It was redemption of sorts for Joubert after a 16th place finish at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.

The pairs event stood out the least for me with a couple of notable exceptions. Qing Pang and Jian Tong, the Olympic silver medallists from China, capped off an outstanding season, earning first place in both the short and free programs to take their second world title. 

Another highlight was seeing the two-time and defending world pair champions and Olympic bronze medallists, Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy from Germany pull up from third in the short to second overall by skating their beautiful Out of Africa program with the confidence and strength that has been so inconsistent for them this season. 

The bronze medal belonged to Russia's Yuko Kavaguti and Alexander Smirnov for the second-straight year.  Canada's pair champions Jessica Dube and Bryce Davison lost any chance of hitting the podium after an eighth place finish in the short, but were able to perform well enough in the free program to move into sixth place overall.

Virtue and Moir cap fairytale season

In ice dance, the Olympic ice dance champions prevailed and Canada's Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir earned their first world title adding gold to their two world medals from the last two years.  They posted the highest score ever of 70.27 in their original dance and held the lead going into the free dance.

In the final ice dance competition segment it was the Olympic silver medallists, Meryl Davis and Charlie White, who came through with the highest score in the free dance although it was not enough to catch Virtue and Moir. Ultimately, they settled for silver for their first world medal, which was also the only medal earned by the United States at these world championships. 

The bronze went to Italy's Federica Faiella and Massimo Scali who delighted in their first medal in front of a hometown crowd.  

Canada's second entry, Vanessa Crone and Paul Poirier finally got the attention they deserved and posted season's best scores in both their original and free dance and with a seventh place finish helped Canada qualify three spots for next year's world dance team.

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