Canada's Joannie Rochette won silver at the Four Continents figure-skating championships in Goyang, South Korea, on Saturday.

The Île Dupas, Que., native gave her season's best skate for 119.50 points in the long program, raising her overall score to 179.54.

Joannie Rochette, left, says she's "very happy" with her silver-medal performance at the Four Continents figure-skating championships.
(Lee Jin-man/Associated Press)

Rochette took bronze at the Four Continents last year.

Rochette opened her routine, performed to Don Juan, with a solid triple Lutz-double toe-double loop combination followed by a triple flip and a triple loop.

She then landed a triple Lutz and a triple Salchow before she went for a triple toe-triple Salchow sequence. However, the 22-year-old under-rotated the second jump and stumbled out of it. Still, Rochette recovered to hit a double Axel-double Axel sequence.

"With each jump I was landing, I was getting more and more confident," Rochette said. "I'm very pleased with my second-place finish, but I know there are things I can improve upon for the worlds. This performance shows I'm capable of achieving my goals in my short and long programs and getting good results."

The gold medal went to Mao Asada of Japan, who posted a season-high total score of 193.25 points. Fellow Japanese skater Miki Ando won bronze.

Asada, Rochette and Ando had all been clustered within one point of each other after Thursday's short program.

But Asada gave the day's best free skate to move ahead of her competitors.

Rochette, who recently collected her fourth consecutive Canadian national figure-skating title, said she was pleased with her podium-worthy performance in South Korea.

"I am very happy with my performance," she said. "No injuries and lots of training makes a difference."

Vancouver native Mira Leung also finished among the top skaters, taking fifth place.

With files from the Associated Press