Olympic Champions Highlight the Autumn Classic

Yuzuru Hanyu makes history while winning the men; Virtue & Moir come back strong.

As an international competition, the Skate Canada Autumn Classic is now in its third year. Debuting specifically as part of the Challenger Series (although it wasn’t part of it last year), it has been one of its lower-profile events. But this year, even in a crowded weekend for competitions, the Autumn Classic proved a highlight of the fall. It was anticipated as one from the moment 2010 Olympic Champions Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir announced they were starting their comeback at home. This was their first competition since the 2014 Olympics. But their comeback turned out to not be the only significant event to happen there. Besides it’s actual events, the competition also drew notice for unusually high scores for everyone, but at least some of the skaters deserved them anyway.

Men

He might not have been starting a comeback, but Yuzuru Hanyu’s season debut was also highly anticipated. The popular skater had no trouble winning; none of the other competitors were on his level. He also made history by becoming the first skater to successfully land the quadruple loop jump in competition. He even more or less pulled it off in both programs. As promised, he went for six quads throughout the competition. He landed three of them; besides the quad loops, he managed a solo quad salchow. He also tried it in combination in both programs, with disastrous results in the short, and in the free he tripled it. The last quad he tried, a solo quad toe loop in the free, he underrotated and fell on. He also fell on a late lutz. In fact his jumps in general weren’t their best, but it didn’t matter.

Crowd favorite Misha Ge of Uzbekistan won silver with two intensely performed programs. He managed it on the strength of his short, where he landed a quad toe, albeit very wildly. He had no quads in his free. Nor did he have any major problems with his triples, except one: he did too many of them. Men may do only eight triples in the free skate, and Ge did nine. Therefore his final triple flip was invalidated. He also did two three-jump combinations, when he was only allowed one, though there he only forfeited the value of a double loop. Still, it was enough to drop him to third in the free, but he held on by four points ahead of American Max Aaron.

Aaron was fifth in the short, where he doubled a quad salchow attempt. That didn’t stop him from opening his free with two more. He landed them both with a hand down, which was more costly because it lost him a combination. He did well through most of the rest of the program, only to hit trouble on his last three jumping passes, including an ambitiously late quad toe which he tripled, and a double axel he fell on. Still, the highest amount of technical content outside of Hanyu was enough to climb up for bronze.

Ladies

In the ladies, most eyes were on American Mirai Nagasu. Her programs had been debuted already, but after her comeback last year the question lingered how she’d follow up. She certainly followed up well in the short. Her short program was just about perfect, complete with triple flip-triple toe and an emotional performance. She would ultimately win the competition on the strength of it. Her free wasn’t as perfect, though. There both jumps in that combination were downgraded to doubles, and she had three more underrotations, including her solo flip, which she struggled to stay up on. She held on to gold by exactly three points over Canadian Alaine Chartrand.

Chartrand had been sixth after a short. There she went down on her triple lutz, and had a full downgrade on her triple loop-triple toe. But she won the free skate with a program where she landed a triple lutz-triple toe and stayed on her feet for the rest of her triples as well, even if one was underrotated and another was heavily penalized for her taking off of the wrong edge of her skate blade. In terms of skating quality and performance, Chartrand and Nagasu were both above the rest of the field, even bronze medalist Elizabet Tursynbaeva of Kazakhstan, though she’s getting there.

Tursynbaeva is a skater who has suffered some disastrous competitions, enough that it was good to see her mostly hold it together, even if she was clean in neither program. Skating a free where she kept the mistakes to two also allowed to her to land two triple-triple combinations, including a triple lutz-triple toe. She’d landed that in the short too. Second in the short, she held on to a place on the podium by two points over Japanese skater Rika Hongo, who skated decently, but failed to rotate either of her triple-triple attempts and had some other issues as well.

Pairs

Julianne Seguin & Charlie Bilodeau might not have attracted as much attention as their ice-dancing countrymen, but they did well for themselves in their season debut. They started with a fun short program that included gorgeous side by side triple loops, hard jumps for pairs they made look easy. They also landed a throw triple flip, though she had to hang on to it. Their more poetic free, also skated clean, didn’t include the loops, but it included still hard side by side salchows, and another throw triple flip, this time done better. They won by nearly ten points over French team Vanessa James & Morgan Cipres.

James & Cipres were actually in third after the short, behind Americans Marissa Castelli & Mervin Tran. Going for side by side salchows, she had stumbled, their throw flip also hadn’t been the best executed, and their final spins lacked sync. Castelli & Tran, on the other hand, landed their salchows, which included their throw. In the free, James & Cipres had similar spin issues, and she outright fell on the side by side salchows. But they landed a throw quad salchow, albeit for a second on two feet, and a perfect throw triple flip where she even had her arms up, as well as a triple toe-double toe-double toe combination. Castilli & Tran, meanwhile, did none of their jump elements clean, or even their split twist. Their throw flip was doubled, their salchows badly stumbled on, and their combination didn’t happen. They finished a distant third.

Ice Dance

The top attraction of the event did not disappointment. Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir started with a short dance that went effortlessly from sharp to sultry as appropriate, boosted on by straight level 4s on all their technical elements. Their emotional free dance was so beautiful it made the breath catch right from its stunning opening lift onward-and that wasn’t its only piece of innovative choreography. Unlike the short, it wasn’t perfect. The levels weren’t straight 4s, a lift went on too long, and they shockingly finished behind the music. Nonetheless Virtue & Moir served notice to the rest of field: they’re back and better than ever.

After the short dance, Danish team Laurence Fournier Beaudry & Nikolaj Sorensen held second, half a point ahead of Americans Kaitlin Hawayek & Jean-Luc Baker. Both teams had skated solid short programs, but the Danes had taken the advantage of the tariff, even as the Americans with their performance made up a point of that difference. However, the tables turned in the free. Hawayek & Baker skated a beautiful program where they did everything well, from elements to expression. Fournier Beaudry & Sorensen themselves excellently performed a creative free, but got hit with two level 1s, and simply didn’t do things as well. Fourth in the free, they held onto bronze, less than two points ahead of Israelis Isabella Tobias & Ilia Tkachenko. Tobias & Tkachenko, in fact, got a sizably larger technical tariff than either the Danes or Americans, but could not match them in execution or presentation.

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Full results are available here.