Canadian pair sixth at Skate America

CHICAGO – Vanessa Grenier of Sherbrooke, Que., and Maxime Deschamps of Loretteville, Que., produced a satisfying sixth place finish in pairs on Sunday in their senior Grand Prix debut at Skate America.

Yuko Kavaguti and Alexander Smirnov of Russia won the gold medal, Haven Denney and Brandon Frazier of the U.S. were second and Cheng Peng and Hao Zhang of China third.

Grenier and Deschamps, in their second season together, also ranked sixth in both their short and long programs.

‘’We each made an error in our free program but we feel we made a good impression this weekend,’’ said Grenier, 22.  ‘’We were able to manage our stress level and we know what we need to work on.’’

The pair were fifth at their previous two outings this season – the Nebelhorn Trophy and Skate Canada’s Autumn International – both part of the ISU’s new Challenger Series.

‘’We’ve increased the difficulty levels of both our short and long programs for this year,’’ added Deschamps, also 22.  ‘’So far our season is going well but I think today we made sure we really enjoyed our performance as well.’’

On Saturday night, 16-year-old world junior champion Nam Nguyen of Toronto won the bronze medal in comeback fashion in men’s singles.

Full results: http://www.isuresults.com/results/gpusa2014/index.htm