There was disappointment and promise for Burnaby senior skaters at the National Skating Championships in Ottawa this weekend.
Last year’s bronze medalists in the ice dance, Nicole Orford and Thomas Williams, failed to earn selection to the national team for the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia following a fifth-place finish in the senior dance.
Orford and Williams were fifth after the short dance and couldn’t move up in the free dance, following a 152.08 total score.
Alexandra Paul and Mitchell Islam held onto their opening third-place showing, picking up the third berth to the Olympics with a bronze-medal score of 170.64.
Former Olympic gold medalists and two-time world champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Ontario won their sixth Canadian title with a 194.03 score. Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje were the runners-up.
All three pairs earned a spot on the Canadian team to the Sochi Olympics.
On a brighter note, former junior ice dance champions Madeline Edwards and Zhao Kai Pang of Burnaby placed seventh at their first-ever senior nationals.
Edwards and Pang finished with a 143.90 score, narrowly edging Quebec pair Elisabeth Paradis and Francois-Xavier Ouellette by a tenth of a point for seventh place.
In the senior men’s final, Jeremy Ten placed sixth overall with a 213.92 score.
Former Burnaby junior champion Nam Nguyen, now skating in Ontario, was fifth following a fourth-best free skate.
Coquitlam’s Kevin Reynolds edged another B.C. Centre of Excellence skater, Liam Firus, for second place.
Current world champion Patrick Chan won his seventh consecutive senior national men’s title with a 277.42 total score.
