Montreal: Canada’s Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps won an emotional and historic pairs figure skating championship on home ice Thursday as two-time defending champion Shoma Uno won the men’s short program.
Stellato-Dudek, who at 40 became the oldest woman to win a world figure skating title in any discipline, was already in tears as she and Deschamps walked off the ice to a standing ovation at the Center Bell.
Their free skate scored 144.08 points, second only to the 144.35 earned by defending champions Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara of Japan, but it was enough for the Canadians to take the title with a total of 221.56 points.
Miura and Kihara, who missed much of the season due to injury, took silver with 217.88 and Germany’s Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin were third with 210.40.
“It’s a dream come true,” Stellato-Dudek told the crowd, her voice breaking.
The 2000 World Junior silver medalist skating for the United States retired in 2001 due to injury, but returned in 2016 as a pair and began skating for Canada in 2021.
There were moments of tension in the free ride, but Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps rose to the occasion.
“It was difficult for me tonight because I didn’t feel well,” Stellato-Dudek said, and Deschamps said he felt “nothing but pride” in their performance.
“Deanna was sick. Our practice was tough today, but we stuck it out and got through it.
“She’s a fighter,” he said.
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Earlier, Uno landed a combination quad flip, quad loop and triple toe loop plus a triple Axel to score a best 107.72 points in the men’s short program, making him the man to beat for the title in Saturday’s free skate.
Countryman Yuma Kagiyama was second in the short and American Ilia Malinin was third.
Uno, 26, could become the first to win three consecutive men’s world titles since American Nathan Chen completed the “Three-peat” in 2021.
Kagiyama, a two-time world runner-up who also won silver at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, was close behind with 106.35 and fellow American teenager Malinin with 105.97.
Uno failed to match his unbeaten dominance in the 2022-23 campaign this season, settling for second place in the China and Japan Grands Prix and losing to Malinin in the Grand Prix final.
But he stole the show from Kagiyama who won the Four Continents crown.
Malinin, a 19-year-old two-time US champion, is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition.
After landing a four toe loop and a four lutz-triple toe combination, he managed to achieve artistic scores.
“It wasn’t a program that I was really happy with, but I was happy to go through it,” Malinin said, referring to the injury and mental struggles of the past two weeks.
“It was very difficult for me mentally,” he said. “I’m glad I went ahead and believed and believed in myself.
South Korea’s Cha Jun-hwan, last year’s world runner-up, landed a quad salchow but fell moments later on a triple loop and was ninth in 88.21.
