MONCTON, N.B. - There wasn’t a lot of dazzle for Olympic ice dance champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir on Friday night.

In their short program, Virtue stumbled on a twizzle and there were also some unison problems, but their performance was good enough to move the London, Ont., based duo into first place at the Canadian figure skating championships with a score of 68.41, just ahead of Detroit-based dancers Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje (68.27).

“To be honest, I don’t know,” said Virtue, when asked what went wrong. “I felt great. We were feeling together, we had a good practice, mentally we’re in the right place and ready to perform. Sometimes that doesn’t always mean you’re going to pull it off.”

Moir said pressure might have been a factor.

“We always find the nationals brings a lot of pressure,” he said. “You’re in your own country and you want to perform well for your fans. I really wanted to go out there and do it and I think this was a case of squeezing the stick too tightly.”