PYEONGCHANG, Korea, Republic Of -- Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir captured the gold medal in ice dancing Friday at the ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Virtue, from London, and Moir, from Ilderton, scored 196.95 points after the free dance to claim first place. They had led the field after the short program.
Maia and Alex Shibutani took second place with 191.85 while fellow Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates took the bronze medal with 185.58 points.
Kaitlyn Weaver of Toronto and Andrew Poje of Waterloo, Ont., finished in 5th place -- one spot ahead of Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Toronto.
Virtue and Moir scored a personal best 117.20 with their free dance to "Pilgrims on a Long Journey" by Montreal's Coeur De Pirate, and Sam Smith's "Latch."
"What an honour for Tessa and I to be Four Continents champions," Moir said. "It was obviously a goal of ours just to qualify for this event at the beginning of the year.
"Today was an interesting performance for us as we left a couple of points on the board, but it was really special for us to be in that venue. We really felt the energy and we're really happy with certain parts of our performance. We're going to be pretty excited, looking forward to the next five weeks for the world championship."
The Four Continents is a final tune-up for next month's world championships in Helsinki, and a test event for the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics.
The men's short program is also being held today, featuring Patrick Chan of Toronto, a three-time winner of the Four Continents competition.
