Duhamel and Radford settle for silver at Grand Prix final as winning streak ends

BARCELONA, Spain – Canadian figure skaters Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford saw their impressive winning streak come to an end Friday as they settled for a silver medal in pairs competition at the ISU Grand Prix Final.

Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov of Russia avenged last year’s Grand Prix Final loss to Duhamel and Radford by beating the world champions by scoring 229.44 points with a flawless free skate.

Duhamel of Lively, Ont., and Radford of Balmertown, Ont., had strung together nine straight international victories going back to the fall of 2014.

The Canadians climbed from third after the short to the silver with a season’s best 216.67. Yuko Kavaguti and Alexander Smirnov of Russia were third at 206.59.

“We were really proud, we came back fighting after struggling in the short program,” said Duhamel. “It wasn’t perfect today but it was a step in the right direction. We plan to come back strong in the second half of the season.”

First year seniors Julianne Seguin of Longueuil, Que., and Charlie Bilodeau of Trois-Pistoles, Que., were fourth with a personal best 200.98 and showed they will be a force to reckon with in the future.

“We are happy with what we did even though we made a couple of mistakes,” said Seguin. “One of our goals was to break the 200-point barrier. It really means a lot and shows we’ve reached another level.”

In ice dancing after the short dance, defending champions Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje of Waterloo, Ont., are in first place with 72.75 points. Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the U.S. are second at 71.64 and Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte of Italy third at 70.14.

“We are so happy with our short dance today,” said Weaver. “We felt great this whole week and today we skated our short dance with grace and felt the energy of the Spanish fans.”

Also, Russian 16-year-olds Evgenia Medvedeva and Elena Radionova grabbed the top two places of the women’s competition after the short program.

Medvedeva, the junior world champion, scored her season’s best 74.58 points. Radionova had 69.43, while Mao Asada of Japan was next with 69.13.