MONTREAL: Three-time reigning world champion Kaori Sakamoto of Japan grabbed the lead over American comeback queen Alysa Liu after Friday’s women’s short program at Skate Canada. Sakamoto, the defending Skate Canada champion, won the short program with 74.97 points with 19-year-old Liu, in her first ISU Grand Prix event since 2021, second on 67.68 and 18-year-old Swiss Kimmy Repond third on 66.94.

Sakamoto, a 24-year-old from Kobe, took women’s bronze and team silver at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. The four-time Japanese champion opened her 2024 Grand Prix campaign with a strong performance in the night’s final routine after starting her season last month with a third-place effort at the lower level Lombardia Trophy event in Italy.

Liu, who made a triumphant return from retirement two weeks ago in Budapest, was the first American woman to land a quadruple jump and won the 2019 and 2020 US national titles at ages 13 and 14. She finished sixth at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and third at the 2022 world championships then retired two weeks later, saying skating was taking over her life. 

After a two-year break, and a ski trip that got her missing the thrills of the ice, Liu announced a comeback, making a return last March. Liu was the first skater on the ice and had set the pace until Sakamoto’s closing performance.

Japanese 19-year-old Hana Yoshida was fourth on 65.32. Canada’s reigning pairs world champions, Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps, launched their bid for a second Skate Canada title in a row by winning the short programme with 73.23 points before a cheering crowd on home ice.

Germany’s Annika Hocke and Robert Kunkel were second on 64.82, only 0.01 ahead of Australians Anastasia Golubeva and Hektor Giotopoulos Moore. The women’s and pairs free skate finals will be conducted on Saturday along with the men’s short programme, highlighted by reigning world champion Ilia Malinin of the United States, and rhythm ice dance, where 2024 world runners-up Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Canada seek a fifth consecutive title.

The six-event ISU Grand Prix series continues next month in France, Japan, Finland and Canada leading to the Grand Prix Final in December at Grenoble, France. —AFP