Canada picked up its third consecutive medal at international junior Grand Prix ice dance events, following a gold medal by Ontario’s Mackenzie Bent and Garrett MacKeen.
Bent and MacKeen, the reigning Canadian junior ice dance champions, skated an international best 138.17 to top the International Skating Union event at Ostrava, Czech Republic last Friday.
Canadian skaters won three of four events in Ostrava – including former Burnaby resident Nam Nguyen who won the junior worlds last year – an all-time best for our national skaters in the 18 years the junior Grand Prix has operated.
Last month, Madeline Edwards and Zhaokai Pang of Burnaby earned a silver medal at the opening Jr. GP event of the season in France, while Brianna Delmaestro and Timothy Lum matched their B.C. Centre of Excellence teammates with a runner-up medal in Slovenia last week.
A third Megan Wing and Aaron Lowe-coached B.C. team, Danielle Wu and Spencer Soo of Burnaby placed sixth in the Cezch competition.
Wu and Soo’s score of 117.77 was 10 points behind their personal-best that was achieved at last season’s junior Grand Prix event also held in the Czech Republic.
Edwards and Pang are up again at the fourth stop of the GP circuit in Aichi, Japan this week.
The current Canadian novice women’s champion, 13-year-old Sarah Tamura of Burnaby will also compete in Japan.
Delmaestro and Lum will compete again in Dresden, Germany in October.
The junior Grand Prix final will be held in mid-December in Barcelona, Spain.
