(December 10, 2010 – BEIJING, China) – Patrick Chan of Toronto kept himself in gold medal contention on Friday placing second in the men’s short program at the ISU Grand Prix Final figure skating competition.
Nobunari Oda of Japan took the lead earning 86.59 points while Chan is only a point behind after a season-best 85.59. World champion Daisuke Takahashi of Japan stands third at 82.57. Chan and Oda were 1-2 respectively earlier this season at Skate Canada.
“I’m really pleased because I haven’t had the greatest short programs this season,” said Chan, the world championship silver medallist. “There’s been some self-doubt because it has been going great in training and I couldn’t seem to transfer that to competition. So I worked a lot on mental preparation leading into this event and it turned out much better.”
“This was his strongest short of the season so far,” added Mike Slipchuk, Skate Canada’s high performance director. “All three jump elements were solid and the levels of the spins and footwork were all strong.”
Chan's best finish at the Grand Prix Final was fifth in 2007 and 2008 and he qualified for the Beijing competition by winning Skate Canada and finishing second in the Cup of Russia last month.
“This is a really good position to be in heading into the free skate,” said Chan. “I don’t have to skate last and the points are really close. I’m just going to into that free skate with the same approach as I did today (for the short).”
In pairs, two-time world champions Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy of Germany grabbed a big lead after the short program. Kirsten Moore-Towers of St. Catharines, Ont., and Dylan Moscovitch of Waterloo, Ont., stand sixth.
“All in all the program felt good until I forgot how to skate for a split second,” said Moscovitch, who fell executing the side-by-side spins, the last element of the program. “There were little mistakes here and there and we’ve got stuff we need to work on leading up to the nationals.”
In ice dancing after the short dance, Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje, both of Waterloo, Ont., are fourth at 55.51 while Vanessa Crone of North York, Ont., and Paul Poirier of Unionville, Ont., are fifth at 54.82. Both are still in the medal hunt with third place Nora Hoffmann and Maxim Zavozin of Hungary scoring 55.98.
Meryl Davis and Charlie White of the U.S., are first and Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat of France are second.
Competition ends Saturday with all four senior finals as well as the junior finals in men’s singles and pairs.
In junior competition, Taylor Steele of Strathroy, Ont., and Rob Schultz of Morriston, Ont., are third after the pairs short program with Natasha Purich of Sherwood Park, Alta., and Raymond Schultz (no relation to Rob) of Toronto fourth and Brittany Jones of Toronto., and Kurtis Gaskell of Guelph, Ont., seventh.
Andrei Rogozine of Richmond Hill, Ont., is seventh after the men’s junior short program.
The Grand Prix Final features the top six finishers by points in each category from the six-event International Skating Union (ISU) qualifying series.
For more information visit: www.isu.org