Canada's Moore-Towers, Marinaro fall just short of Four Continents pairs title
China's Sui, Han win by 0.06 points in Anaheim
Canada's Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro fell 0.06 points short of winning the pairs program on Saturday at the Four Continents figure skating championship in Anaheim, Calif.
The Canadian duo, who led after the short program, were bested by China's Wenjing Sui and Cong Han in the free. Sui and Han finished with a combined score of 211.11, just ahead of Moore-Towers and Marinaro's 211.05 mark.
Cheng Peng and Yang Jin of China placed third with 205.42
WATCH | Moore-Towers and Marinaro's free skate:
Canada had two other duos competing; Evelyn Walsh and Trennt Michaud finished seventh, while Camille Ruest and Andrew Wolfe placed eighth.
CBC Sports has live coverage of the entire competition, including the men's free program on Saturday at 10 p.m. ET.
WATCH | China's Sui and Han skate to gold:
Shoma Uno was the first skater in Saturday's final group of the men's free skate. He ended up executing a flawless program that no one was able to match.
The Japanese skater won the men's title by successfully landing three quadruple jumps during his four-minute program, including one in combination. The 197.36 points was the highest score in an international competition this season.
WATCH | Shoma Uno takes men's title:
The 2018 Olympic silver medallist — who was in fifth place after Thursday's short program — posted a total of 289.12 points, which was nearly 16 points better than China's Boyang Jin, who was the defending champion. American Vincent Zhou was third with 272.22 points.
Canada's Keegan Messing placed fourth.
WATCH | Keegan Messing skates to 4th-place finish:
Uno said earlier this week that he had reinjured his right ankle after winning Japan's national championship in December. That didn't stop him from keeping in three quads. The program, set to Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" began with a quad flip and quad toeloop, which earned a combined 25.75 points. Halfway into the program he had a quad toe loop-double toe loop combination (13.51 points) along with a triple axel-single euler-triple flip combination for 14.15 points.
He collapsed to the ice at the end of the program, which was more out of relief than elation.
"I think I was able to do everything I can," Uno said. "There weren't a lot of happy emotions when I collapsed, it was like `I really did it.' I thought about how I was injured after Nationals and how I can bring my skating to the next level."
Jin finished with 273.51 points but was frustrated with his free skate, which included one fewer quad than usual.
"I wanted to put on a better performance. My skating wasn't that relaxed," Jin said. "Two minutes before stepping on the ice, I decided to not do the quad salchow in my program and change some of the choreography."
Zhou led after the short program but under rotated on a couple of his quad jumps during his free skate. He was fifth in the long program (172.04) but was still pleased to get on the podium.
"I'm proud of myself at this competition and I'm continuing that upward trend," Zhou said.
With files from The Associated Press