Four Continents 2012
Patrick
Chan of Canada struck gold at the ISU Four Continents Figure Skating
Championships.
Daisuke Takahashi of Japan claimed the silver medal and
Ross Miner of the USA surged from sixth to capture the bronze.
Overnight
leader Chan turned in a strong performance to „Concerto de Aranjuez“,
reeling off a quad-triple toeloop combination, another quad toe, triple
Axel and five triple jumps. With 185.99 points the World Champion
improve his seasons best by 12.32 points and totaled 273.94 points.
„Today I actually felt pretty nervous going into the long, more nervous
than I’ve been in a long time. I was very happy. I stayed focused after a
rough practice this morning. I took the time to rest and I did the
elements really well. I learned a lot this week“, Chan told the press.
„I can say that training here is different than actually competing here.
I didn’t have an advantage of training here. I hit the wall at a point
going into the last spin before the last triple Lutz. I was quite dead“,
the Canadian explained. „For Daisuke and I, going to Worlds, it gives
us confidence that it will be easier. I told myself going into my last
spin that this is going to be the hardest of them all“, he concluded.
Takahashi
two-footed his opening quad toe and singled the first Axel in his
routine to „Blues for Klook“ but rallied back to nail six triples and
two level-four spins. The 2010 World Champion scored 161.74 points and
moved up from third to second at 244.33 points. „My performance was not
so good, I missed two jumps. But the audience helped me and I enjoyed
tonight a lot“, Takahashi said. „Between nationals and Worlds there is a
lot of time so I’m glad to compete here in between. There was also a
big gap between me and Patrick which gives me motivation to work
harder“, he added.