Moose Jaw’s Raine Eberl and Regina’s Caidence Derenisky are officially one of the top pairs figure skating teams in Canada.
And by extension, the best pairs team in the country west of Ontario.
The duo were the lone team from Western Canada to crack the top 10 at the Skate Canada Canadian Tire Skating Championship in Oshawa, Ont. this past week, as they put together a sixth-place finish in the senior pair division.
Eberl and Derenisky put up 52.19 points to sit in fifth place after the short program on Friday, picking up 34.85 points for the execution of their program elements and 24.47 points for the program component portion, which covers composition, presentation and skating skills.
The duo followed up with 103.07 points in the freeskate on Saturday -- 51.41 points for their elements, 51.66 points for their components -- to finish in sixth.
Eberl and Derenisky weren’t that far off from a top-five showing, either, as they finished two points back of Quebec’s Emmanuelle Proft and Nicolas Nadeau. With a bit more luck on their side and another 13 points out of their program, they would have landed in the top four and ended up with international assignments from Skate Canada.
Quebec’s Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps ended up in first place with 199.18 points, while Ontario’s ON Brooke McIntosh and Benjamin Mimar were second with 187.26 and Ontario’s Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud third with 176.53.
Alberta’s Keegan Messing won the men’s singles national title, while Ontario’s Madeline Schizas is the 2023 women’s national champion and Quebec’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Soerensen claimed the ice dance title.
You can find all the results from the Skate Canada nationals at www.skatecanada.ca.
