Canada's Weaver & Poje lead after short dance at Cup of China
Kaetlyn Osmond tops after ladies short, Patrick Chan sits 3rd in men's competition
Canadians are off to a great start at the Cup of China Grand Prix of Figure Skating event in Beijing on Friday.
The ice dance duo Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje, both from Waterloo, Ont, have a slim lead over American siblings Maia and Alex Shibutani following the short dance.
The Canadians produced a personal international score of 73.78 compared to the Americans 73.23, with the Russian pair of Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin not far behind with 72.09.
Weaver and Poje were third at the Rostelecom Cup in Russia earlier this month.
"We've shown great improvements since Russia," said Weaver. "We still haven't had a perfectly clean performance and that's what we are aiming for."
Alexandra Paul of Midhurst, Ont., and Mitchell Islam of Barrie, Ont., withdrew after Paul injured her knee in practice.
The free dance kicks off Saturday's action, and you can stream it live on CBCSports.ca beginning at 1:30 a.m. ET.
Osmond 1st in ladies event
Canada also claimed the best short program in the ladies discipline. Kaetlyn Osmond of Marystown, NL, scored 72.20 for the lead over competitors Elena Radionova of Russia (70.75) and Japan's Mai Mihara (68.48).
Perennial contender Ashley Wagner of the U.S. is currently fifth with a score of 64.36.
Osmond is enjoying a terrific season to this point, finishing second at Skate Canada International with two personal best scores. She also won an international event in Finland.
"I'm overall pretty happy," said Osmond. "It didn't feel quite as good as Skate Canada but I got everything done."
Chan off to rough start
On the men's side, Toronto's Patrick Chan sits in third place (83.41), behind Boyan Jin of China (96.17) and Daniel Samohin of Israel (83.47).
"Today was a bit rough," said Chan, who is coming off a victory at Skate Canada International. "I obviously could have done a lot better. All the landings were a little shaky. The little mistakes add up to big mistakes in the short program."
In the pairs competition, Canada's Liubov Ilyushechkina and Dylan Moscovitch stand in second place, posting a score of 71.28.
The Canadians are 1.21 points behind China's Yu Xiaoyu and Zhang Hao. Another Chinese pair, Peng Cheng and Jin Yang are third at 69.93.
''The program felt good,'' said Moscovitch. ''We were at an even-keel energy-wise and other than a little mistake on the jump felt we were very connected.''
You can watch more Cup of China action on Saturday (4 p.m. ET) and Sunday (2 p.m. ET) on Road to the Olympic Games, our weekly show spotlighting the best high-performance athletes from Canada and around the world.