Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford skate in the senior pairs long program at the Canadian National Figure Skating Championships in Mississauga, Ontario January 19, 2013. (REUTERS)
MISSISSAUGA, ONT. - For the past two weeks, Meagan Duhamel kept telling pair partner Eric Radford it would be easier to win a second straight Canadian title than it was their first.
They were wrong.
The defending champs smashed the old Canadian record for pair total points with 206.63 – and they needed nearly every little bit to fend off rivals Kirsten Moore-Towers and Dylan Moscovitch – in the nail-biting national figure skating free skate Saturday night at Mississauga's Hershey Centre.
“That was the hardest thing we ever had to do and it's so great for Canadian skating,” said Duhamel, the 27-year-old from Lively, near Sudbury. “It was like a million roller coasters we just rode.
“That was the most amazing, exhilarating thing. We started with our not very best twist and just put it into gear.”
Moore-Towers and Moscovitch, who placed a shocking fourth last year in Moncton after a poor long program, set the stage for the drama with an emotional long program and 204.54 total
