Canada's Stellato-Dudek, Deschamps capture historic pairs figure skating world title in Montreal
CBC
Canada's Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps captured gold in the pairs competition Thursday night at the World Figure Skating Championships in Montreal.
The two-time national champions posted a personal-best total score of 221.56 after skating to "Interview With a Vampire" in the free program.
They placed first in the short program on Wednesday to give themselves a 3.95-point cushion and followed it up with a personal-best 144.08 in the free program to dethrone defending champions Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara of Japan.
Miura and Kihara had the best score in the free program but finished with silver (217.88). Germany's Minerva Fabienne Has and Nikita Volodin took bronze (210.40).
Stellato-Dudek of Chicago and Deschamps of Vaudreuil-Dorion, Que., received a standing ovation from the Bell Centre crowd before they even finished the program. Fans held up Canadian flags and "Go Deanna & Max" signs to support the hometown duo.
They're the first Canadian pair to win gold since Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford won back-to-back world titles in 2015 and 2016.
The 40-year-old Stellato-Dudek became the oldest woman figure skater to win a world title.
It's also her first medal at a senior worlds. A singles silver medallist at the 2000 world junior championship, she retired at 17 due to a chronic hip injury but revived her career 16 years later as a pairs skater. In 2019, she moved to Montreal and joined forces with Deschamps.
Lia Pereira of Milton, Ont., and Trennt Michaud of Brantford, Ont., finished eighth (186.93).
Local pair Kelly Ann Laurin of Saint-Jerome, Que., and Loucas Ethier of St-Alphonse, Que., were 15th (169.48) in their world championship debut.
On Friday, ice dancers compete in the rhythm dance during the day session followed by the women's free program in the evening. Two-time defending champion Kaori Sakamoto of Japan is in fourth after the free program. Belgium's Loena Hendrickx is ranked first.
The world championships go through the men's free program on Saturday night.
It's Montreal's first time hosting the event since 1932. The city was supposed to host the worlds in 2020 but the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the competition.
Watch live coverage of the World Figure Skating Championships on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem.
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