(February 14, 2003)
Canadian Dance Champions Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz wowed the crowd at the Beijing Capital Gymnasium yesterday as they skated to a gold medal in the Dance event at the 2003 ISU Four Continents Championships.

Bourne and Kraatz, who performed their free dance to Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni's Adagio of the 21st Century, dazzled the audience with their innovative and difficult lifts and their intricate footwork. The Four Continents event is only the second time the 10-time Canadian Dance Champions have performed this season's free dance in competition.

The judges rewarded Bourne and Kraatz for their impressive performance with a total of five perfect marks of 6.0 for presentation. The rest of the presentation marks ranged between 5.8 to 5.9. In addition, the duo also received marks ranging from 5.7 to 5.9 for technical merit.

"It felt great," said Bourne. "This whole week has been great, starting from day one with the compulsory. Today, the crowd got into our program, and the judges obviously enjoyed it, with five 6.0s. That is very exciting. It gives us more confidence going into the Worlds (Championships) in Washington."

Bourne and Kraatz stood atop the leader board in all three stages of the competition.

Finishing second was the American team of Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto. Belbin and Agosto, who were in third-place entering into the final stage of the competition, skated a vibrant program to an Elvis medley. Their performance earned them marks ranging from 5.4 to 5.9 for technical merit and 5.6 to 5.9 for presentation.

Rounding out the medal podium was another American duo, five-time U.S. national champions Naomi Lang and Peter Tchernyshev.

The silver medallists from the Senior Dance event at the 2003 BMO Financial Group Canadian Championships, Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon, just missed the podium, finishing in fourth-place. Dubreuil and Lauzon's program, skated to Majoly's Dance With My Heart, was rewarded with marks ranging from 5.0 to 5.4 for technical merit and 5.1 to 5.5 for presentation.

Megan Wing and Aaron Lowe, the bronze medallists from the Senior Dance event at 2003 BMO Financial Group Canadian Championships, also skated an impressive free dance, which earned them fifth-place. Their marks ranged from 4.9 to 5.5 for technical merit and 5.2 to 5.7 for presentation.