(Espoo) Canadian dancers Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier dominated the rhythm program Friday at the Grand Prix of Figure Skating in Espoo, Finland.
Gilles and Poirier, who finished seventh at the Beijing Olympics last winter, ran on the pieces Do What I Do and Rhythm Only of Lady Bri, en route to a harvest of 87.80 points.
They were ahead of the American duos formed by Kaitlin Hamayek and Jean-Luc Baker (80.93) as well as Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko (76.20).
The other pair of Canadian dancers, Quebec’s Carolane Soucisse and Shane Firus, finished sixth at 72.38.
The dance free program will be presented on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Alberta’s Keegan Messing finished fourth in the men’s short program with a score of 80.12.
The Canadian was overtaken in order by Frenchman Kevin Aymoz (88.96), American Ilya Malinin (85.57) and Japanese Shun Sato (81.59).
On the women’s side, Ontario’s Madeleine Schizas settled for fifth in the short program with a score of 65.19.
Belgian Loena Hendrickx finished first with 74.88 points, followed by Japanese Mai Mihara (73.58) and Mana Kawabe (67.03).
In the pairs, Italians Rebecca Ghilardi and Filippo Ambrosini dominated the short program with a score of 67.31 points. No Canadian couples are participating in this event.
The Espoo Grand Prix is the penultimate stop of the season in this series, culminating in the presentation of the Figure Skating Grand Prix Final from December 8-11 in Turin, Italy.