Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres of France soared to victory in the Pairs event as competition wrapped up at the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final in Vancouver.
China’s Cheng Peng and Yang Jin claimed the Silver Medal and Russians Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov settled for the Bronze. It was the first Grand Prix Final Medal for the French and the Chinese teams.
James and Cipres turned in a mesmerizing performance to “Wicked Game” and “The Last Feeling”, reeling off a Triple Twist, Triple Toe-Double, Toe-Double, Toe Combination, Triple Salchow, a Throw Triple Flip and Throw Triple Salchow as well as Spectacular Lifts.
The World Bronze Medalists improved their season’s best with a score of 148.37 points and racked up 219.88 points overall.
“I could not be happier than I am today. I feel like we’ve only been doing comebacks lately. It feels good. The score could be amazing and the experience could be amazing, but we really need to work on the short program. I’m very proud that after such a disappointment yesterday, that we could bring it strong home,” James said.
ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Pair Final
219.88 Vanessa JAMES / Morgan CIPRES - FRA 216.90 Cheng PENG / Yang JIN - CHN 214.20 Evgenia TARASOVA / Vladimir MOROZOV - RUS 201.07 Natalia ZABIIAKO / Alexander ENBERT - RUS 187.63 Nicole DELLA MONICA / Matteo GUARISE - ITA 186.81 Daria PAVLIUCHENKO / Denis KHODYKIN - RUS
