Nagoya (Japan) (AFP) – Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States won the ice dance title at the Grand Prix Final in Nagoya on Saturday to burnish their credentials for Olympic gold. The husband-and-wife team won for the third straight year, racking up 220.42 points to finish ahead of France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron on 214.25. Britain’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson were third on 208.81.
Chock and Bates are looking for their first Olympic medal in February and will head to Milan-Cortina as the favourites for gold. “It feels like a sprint to get to the Grand Prix Final and then all of a sudden you have a month or two before we’ll meet again in Milan,” said Bates. “It really is the first half of the season and then there’s a lot of progress that can be made in the next few months, which is something that we’re looking forward to.”
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Chock and Bates qualified for the final with two grands prix wins, a record shared by Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron. The French pair suffered a blow in the final when Fournier Beaudry stumbled to the ice late in their routine. “I think there is no explanation,” she said. “It’s something that can happen in the moment that never happens in practice.”
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