Canadians Duhamel, Radford lead after pairs short program at Skate Canada

SAINT JOHN, N.B. – Canadians Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford positioned themselves as the pairs team to beat at Skate Canada International.

Skating to a song Radford wrote after the death of his coach, the duo won Friday’s short program with a score of 69.57 points.

Italians Stefania Berton and Ondrej Hotarek were right behind the Canadians with 69.38, while Sui Wenjing and Han Cong were third with 69.02 at Harbour Station arena.

Duhamel, from Lively, Ont., and Radford, from Balmertown, Ont., bronze medallists at last spring’s world championships, won despite Duhamel stumbling out of her triple Lutz, and putting a hand down on the throw triple Lutz.

The Canadians skated to “Tribute,” which Radford, a pianist who studied at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music, wrote in 2006 the day after his coach Paul Wirtz died of cancer.

Later, Toronto’s three-time world champion Patrick Chan was scheduled to make his season debut with his short program, while Olympic ice dance champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir skated their short dance.

Skate Canada is second of six stops on figure skating’s Grand Prix circuit. The top six entries in each discipline qualify for the Grand Prix Final, Dec. 5-8, in Fukuoka, Japan.