Germany's Aliona Savchenko is thrown by her partner, Robin Szolkowy, as they perform their rebuilt free program on Saturday at Skate Canada. (Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press)

The new program works.

Two-time world champions Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy ended weeks of speculation over a rebuilt long performance by easily winning the pairs competition on Saturday at HomeSense Skate Canada International, in Kitchener, Ont.

The Germans put up a 132.55 in the free skate — best of the fall series — and totalled 206.71 for the gold medal.

Russia's Maria Mukhortova and Maxim Trankov overcame a wardrobe malfunction that caused a delay and restart to finish second, while Canada's Jessica Dubé and Bryce Davison struggled into third.

That bronze medal was key because the pair needed to finish in at least second place, or pick up enough points in third, to qualify for the Grand Prix final two weeks hence in Tokyo.

They did neither.

"A few pretty big errors in the long today — very, very costly at the very end in our pair's spin," Davison told the CBC. "That's the way it goes in sports.

"It was a bit of a struggle, but we got through it and we tried to keep a nice looking program together."

Dubé bounced back well from a bad mistake in the short program Friday that saw her single the normally superb side-by-side triple salchow, and the two-time Canadian champions performed a romantic, sensual program to The Way We Were in the free.

But errors this time by Davison — especially stumbling on side-by-side double axels that also meant not being able to hold the speed for a following double — cost key marks.

They finished with 166.93 points overall.

Anabelle Langlois and Cody Hay, skating their first Grand Prix event in two years, put in a strong performance, scoring 104.53 for a 159.95 total.

They missed all of last season after Langlois broke an ankle.

Take deduction

Mukhortova and Trankov, winners in Paris to open the fall, began their program strongly.

But a hanging strap at the bottom of Trankov's pants caused the referee to halt the routine for safety reasons (stepping on the strap while Mukhortova was in the air could have been disastrous) and the Russians took a two-point deduction.

They restarted beautifully, however, coming out with an excellent throw triple loop and moving through a well done, if somewhat cold, program to score 119.91 and 185.71.

All eyes were on Savchenko and Szolkowy after that, and the Germans did not disappoint as they skated to Out of Africa.

They had begun the Grand Prix season in Paris with a stumbling, disjointed program that left the heavy favourites third.

Instead of trying to work through the new routines and fix things, coach and choreographer Ingo Steuer trashed it, coming up with a new program that included elements of the first one, reworked and joined with pieces from past free skates.

And his team came through like a charm.