With Anastasia Golubeva/Hektor Giotopoulos Moore out of Finlandia Trophy this week, the fight for the podium seems very clear among three teams. And as a result, the picture for Grand Prix Final qualifications also changes quite a bit. With four spots left to fill, two pairs here have a realistic shot at getting one of those slots, and the difference of even one placement is going to make big waves for the other pairs who are vying for the Final.
Finlandia Trophy predictions
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GOLD Deanna Stellato-Dudek/Maxime Deschamps CAN - Though they won Skate Canada three weeks ago, they were absolutely not satisfied with their free skate there. They are looking ahead to the Grand Prix Final, where a showdown among the top pairs loom, and they want to go in with the confidence of having hit a stronger free skate with their full difficulty. They are favorites to win here, but the World champs want to do more than that—they want to make a statement.
SILVER Rebecca Ghilardi/Filippo Ambrosini ITA - Bronze at Grand Prix de France two weeks ago, the Italians look to return to the Grand Prix Final a third year in a row. But to do that, they will likely need to get themselves in that silver medal spot. The big obstacles for them are always the side-by-sides. Two clean programs will put them into second, but there’s little room for error.
BRONZE Maria Pavlova/Alexei Sviatchenko HUN - The Hungarian champions are known for their consistency but were just off enough at Skate America that they couldn’t make up for their lower component scores relative to the other pairs. The side-by-sides have not been totally there for them this season so far, and they will need to be cleaner to fend off the Italians.
4. Emily Chan/Spencer Howe USA - They’ve been in two events so far this season, and with Howe still rehabbing his shoulder from surgery, they continue to look more and more like their old selves. They took fifth at Skate Canada, but were miles better than how they looked a few weeks before that at Shanghai Trophy. This will be an opportunity for them to take another step forward.
5. Yuna Nagaoka/Sumitada Moriguchi JPN - Late replacements for Golubeva/Giotopoulos Moore, the Japanese number two have made some big strides this season in their pairing. They were seventh last week in NHK Trophy, and they will be looking to move up this week in this more wide open field.
6. Kelly Ann Laurin/Loucas Ethier CAN - Eighth at Skate Canada three weeks ago, Laurin/Ethier had an unfortunate error in their death spiral in the short program that completely invalidated the element. It dug them into too big of a hole to catch up to the rest of that field.
7. Milania Vaananen/Filippo Clerici FIN - Eighth at Skate America earlier in the season, the Finnish champions will be returning to their home Grand Prix. They were eighth here last year.
8. Naomi Williams/Lachlan Lewer USA - The World junior bronze medalists make their senior Grand Prix debut this week in Finland. They took bronze at Tayside Trophy last month with one of their strongest free skates of their career.