BOSTON – Canada’s Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford successfully defended their pairs title at the world figure skating championships on Saturday.
Skating a clean program to Adele’s “Hometown Glory,” they landed a huge quad throw Salchow – the only skaters in the competition to do so – scoring 231.99 points overall.
China’s Sui Wenjing and Han Cong, the leaders after the short program, won silver with 224.47 points. Germany’s Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot took the bronze with 216.17 points.
Olympic champions Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov of Russia skated last but struggled throughout their long program. They settled for a sixth-place finish.
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Lubov Iliushechkina and Dylan Moscovitch of Toronto were seventh while Kirsten Moore-Towers of St. Catharines, Ont., and Michael Marinaro of Sarnia, Ont., were eighth.
Duhamel, from Lively, Ont., and Radford, from Balmertown, Ont., also won gold last year in Shanghai. They have won all but one competition in the past two seasons, finishing second at the Grand Prix Final in December.
The Canadians were in second place after the short program. They wowed the TD Garden crowd – and each other – with a strong effort Saturday to make Canada’s first appearance on the podium at this year’s event.
Duhamel and Radford won world bronze in 2013 and ’14.