Canada's Seguin, Bilodeau in podium position after Skate America short
Gabrielle Daleman sits in 4th ahead of Saturday's ladies free
Canada's Julianne Seguin and Charlie Bilodeau opened the Grand Prix season with a third-place performance in the Skate America pairs short program Friday night in Chicago.
The duo sits in medal position after scoring 66.49 points with a strong first skate. Russia's Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov won the short by a huge margin, posting a score of 75.24. Americans Haven Denney and Brandon Frazier are in second at 67.29.
The free skate will determine the champion Saturday at Sears Centre Arena.
Seguin, 19, and Bilodeau, 23, captured bronze in two Grand Prix events last season, one of which was Skate America.
Wagner leads ladies short
American Ashley Wagner won the ladies short program with a score of 69.50, building on her second-place finish in the world championships.
Japan's Mai Mihara, making her Grand Prix Series debut at 17, was second at 65.75. U.S. champion Gracie Gold is third at 64.87 and Canadian Gabrielle Daleman is fourth at 64.49.
Wager performed with a fierce and determined style, delivering a technically solid and entertaining program to "Sweet Dreams" by the Eurhythmics.
"I capitalized on the momentum [from worlds] going into the summer," said Wagner, the 2012 Skate America winner. "It inspired me to train even harder than I had been because it showed me that my training got me onto that podium. It motivated me and made it a realistic goal to get onto that Olympic podium, and I can almost taste it. It's a totally new season. I'm hopefully a different athlete from that Worlds event and I think it's just about building on that from here on out."
Mihara fell during her warmup, which she said relaxed her during her performance.
"I think for my first Grand Prix event, I did a good job," she said.
Gold, coming off a disappointing fourth-place finish in the world championships, fell on her triple flip, but otherwise was solid in her performance to a tango.
"I had a hiccup on the triple flip, but I went after everything," Gold said. "I just need to keep working on the program and just keep getting it out there."
Gold said the months after the world championships were difficult and affected her training.
"It was a pretty hard summer," she said. "I had trouble getting going and getting my feet under me for some reason. I felt I had let myself down. No one else felt the intense shame that I felt, but it was just so internal that I had trouble getting back out there. But as soon as I got the momentum going, I've been feeling excellent."
With files from the Associated Press