Nam Nguyen edges teen phenom Stephen Gogolev for men's national title
Alaine Chartrand wins shocking women's title as Gabrielle Daleman falls
Nam Nguyen captured the men's singles title at the Canadian figure skating championships in Saint John, N.B., on Saturday, edging 14-year-old phenom Stephen Gogolev.
Skating to music from the movie La La Land, Nguyen landed two clean quadruple jumps en route to scoring 258.01 total points. Gogolev popped his quadruple Lutz, but landed his quad toe loop and quad Salchow cleaning, scoring 253.56 for silver. Keegan Messing was third with 247.44.
WATCH | Nguyen edges Gogolev for gold
Earlier, Alaine Chartrand won gold in women's singles at the Canadian figure skating championships, while Gabrielle Daleman dropped to fifth place.
Chartrand says the victory was redemption after a heartbreaking season that saw her miss the Pyeongchang Olympic team by a narrow margin.
The 22-year-old from Prescott, Ont., skated a clean program to music from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard, scoring 185.91 points.
WATCH | Chartrand skates to women's national gold
"Obviously last year at this time was one of the worst days of my life, finding out I wasn't going to make the Olympic team when I was this close, so a year later, a lot of different feelings. This is why I skate, for this right now, this feeling," Chartrand said.
"Today was the redemption I was looking for. It felt really special."
Daleman led after the short program in her first competition since taking the fall season off to focus on her mental health.
But the 21-year-old from Newmarket, Ont., a bronze medallist at the 2017 world championships, fell twice in her free skate, and nearly fell twice more, plummeting to fifth place. She burst into tears after her marks were shown.
"It was honestly crap," she said. "That's not how I've been training it. I'm very disappointed with how today went."
Aurora Cotop captured the silver (169.35), while Veronik Mallet was third (168.53).
Chartrand won the Canadian title in 2016, but the next two seasons were a roller-coaster of ankle injuries. She spent the Olympics on vacation in Hawaii. She tried to pretend they weren't happening. She didn't watch a minute of the coverage.
Then she upended her life, moving to Toronto and enrolling in kinesiology at York University.
"I had a really strong singular focus on skating between Sochi and Pyeongchang, and I don't think that was always healthy for me, to not have other things that I could be distracted by on a hard day," she said. "This is probably the most I've enjoyed my day-to-day training.
"And I'm skating because I want to keep skating, I'm taking skating as the opportunities and privileges I've gained, and I'm trying to take advantage of that, instead of that — 'oof!' pressure — like 'I need to skate well and get the score.' I just want to be happy at the end of my skate."
Weaver, Poje capture ice dance title
Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje won the ice dance title at the Canadian figure skating championships on Saturday in Saint John, N.B.
The duo from Waterloo, Ont., scored 213.78 points, which topped the previous Canadian championship best of 209.82 set by Olympic champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir last year. But the International Skating Union has changed the scoring this season, to allow for higher grades of execution.
WATCH | Weaver, Poje claim national ice dance crown
Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier had the best free dance score of the night for their performance to Vincent, but it wasn't enough to pass Weaver and Poje. They finished second with 212.31 points.
Moore-Towers, Marinaro win pairs gold
Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro earned gold in pairs at the Canadian figure skating championships.
Moore-Towers, from St. Catharines, Ont., and Marinaro, from Sarnia, Ont., led wire to wire to win with 202.75 points.
WATCH | Moore-Towers, Marinaro capture Canadian pairs title
Evelyn Walsh and Trennt Michaud claimed the silver with 189.87, while Camille Ruest and Drew Wolfe took the bronze (166.84).
Moore-Towers and former partner Dylan Moscovitch won the national title in 2011, but the event had been dominated by two-time world champions Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford ever since.
Duhamel and Radford retired after capturing gold in the team event and bronze in the pairs at the Pyeongchang Olympics.