Four Continents: Meagan Duhamel, Eric Radford win 2nd pairs title

Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford admit they can be better on the ice, but Saturday’s performance was enough for first place in the pairs competition at the Four Continents figure skating competition in Seoul.

Duhamel, a Lively, Ont., native and Radford, who hails from Balmertown, Ont., earned their second Four Continents title with a point total of 219.48.

“We definitely feel confident from this competition,” said Duhamel, who was first with Radford in Thursday’s short program. “But we have room to improve a lot before the world championships [March 23-29 in Shanghai, China].”

China occupied the rest of the podium after Peng Cheng and Zhang Hao earned silver (201.45) and Pang Qing and Tong Jian bronze (199.99).

At 35, Tong and Pang, the five-time Four Continents champions, are the oldest male and female skaters in the competition.

During Saturday’s post-skate news conference, Duhamel and Zhang made a heart shape with their arms while sitting side by side to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

"I'm really proud we how we handled the pressure," said Radford, who is undefeated this season with his skating partner. "We kept it together and still executed a strong performance and what I'm most excited about it that we had such a strong score here and we know we can do that much better.

"Heading into the world championships we'll be looking to improve upon that."

The Canadians have won their four international events this season, including the ISU Grand Prix Final, as well as the national title last month.

"We're very proud of our effort here," said Duhamel. "The highlight was landing the throw quad after we had a small mistake on the side-by-side triple Lutz.

"That's very difficult to do but we kept our focus and composure and that was very important for the rest of the program."

Two other Canadian pairs cracked the top 10 Saturday.

Toronto’s Lubov Iliushechkina and Dylan Moscovitch were sixth (173.50) while Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro placed ninth (160.70).

Denis Ten wins men's event

Olympic bronze medallist Denis Ten won the men's event, landing most of his big jumps in a dominating performance.

The Kazakh skater, who started his routine with a quad toe loop and a quad toe loop-triple toe loop combination, finished with 289.46 points, well ahead of Joshua Farris of the United States in second place. Skating to Ambush from Ten Sides a year after winning his Olympic medal in Sochi, the 21-year-old Ten maintained his commanding lead from Thursday's short program.

"It's a huge honour for me to do well here, basically my second home country," said Ten, who is ethnically Korean and was a favourite with the crowd. "It was like my second Olympics." After his skate, Ten collapsed, rested his head on the ice and then rolled onto his back while the crowd cheered.

Farris, the 2013 world junior champion, rallied from fifth place after the short program for silver. Despite a deduction on a quad toe loop, Farris landed most of his big jumps. The 20-year-old American, who skated to music from Schindler's List, said the medal was a huge boost ahead of next month's world championships in Shanghai.

"It puts me in a great place," said Farris, who has recovered from serious ankle injuries. "I'm much more confident now."

China's Yan Han was third after the short program and finished with the bronze medal Saturday. The 18-year-old Yan skated to Fly Me to the Moon by Bart Howard.

Nam Nguyen of Toronto was 11th just ahead of Vancouver's Jeremy Ten while Liam Firus of North Vancouver, B.C., finished 14th.

The Sochi Olympics gold and silver medallists , Japan's Yuzuru Hanyu and Canada's Patrick Chan, didn't compete in Seoul. Hanyu is injured, while Chan is taking time off.