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Duo double their fun
Sargeant, Wirtz defend gold in close race
There's nothing more fun than winning, and that is exactly what the defending champs did in last night's senior pairs free skate at the Canadian Figure Skating Championships.
Their elegant, error-free performance to Duke Ellington's Songbook lifted the Montreal-based pair to their second-straight national crown on a night when the medallists all produced spectacular skates.
"I can honestly say I don't think Kristy and I have skated a better competition from an artistic point of view and a technical point of view and a mental point of view," Wirtz said. "We enjoyed ourselves this week."
It was a good time to come up big, because both silver medallists Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, who train in St-Leonard, Que., and third-place finishers Valerie Saurette and Jean-Sebastien Fecteau had programs strong enough to qualify for gold had any of the others faltered.
"Kristy dragged me out onto the ice again, because that was the only way I was going out to centre ice after Jean and Valerie," said Wirtz with a laugh.
"I was nervous."
Pelletier, for once, then got a chance to upstage Wirtz, who is well known for his humour and jocularity.
"He thinks that was hard? We had to skate after both of them," Pelletier said. "It was a very loooooong wait before we got on the ice. Once we got on the ice, we got things going. I'm just proud to be back at worlds.
"It was a great event and I'm just proud we were part of it."
As the top two finishers, Sargeant and Wirtz and Sale and Pelletier both earn berths at the world championships in March in Finland. Each of the top three will compete at the inaugural Four Continents event in Halifax next month.
The three podium pairs skated programs with a very high degree of technical difficulty.
Sargeant and Wirtz landed their triple toe jumps, while Saurette and Fecteau became the first Canadian pair to land two triples in the same program, side-by-side triple toes and triple toe-double toe combinations.
Although Sale fell on her triple jump attempt, she and Pelletier were the only pair to complete a very difficult throw triple loop jump. The pair also had great speed and footwork.
"Everyone could see that (we all) had to go out and skate our best," Sale said.
"I can't remember the last time all three podium pairs skated awesome," chimed in Saurette.