Canadian pair Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje comfortably won the ice dance competition at the NHK Trophy in Osaka on Sunday to clinch a spot in the Grand Prix Final.
The world silver medallists won the free dance after also finishing top of Saturday’s short routine, the seven-times national champions posting a total of 169.42 points to capture a second title on the six-leg series after also winning Skate Canada.
“It’s our first NHK title and we were pretty happy with our performance,” Poje told reporters. “But we made a couple of mistakes that we definitely want to fix before the final.”
Russia’s Ksenia Monko and Kirill Khaliavin of Russia moved up one spot to finish as runners-up with 152.54 points ahead of American pair Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker of the United States, who scored a total of 146.41 points.
Weaver and Poje punched their ticket to the December 11-14 Grand Prix Final in Barcelona. Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States had previously qualified along Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France.
Americans Alex and Maia Shibutani of the United States, Canadians Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Canada, and Russian duo Elena Ilinykh and Ruslan Zhiganshin round out the six teams for the season finale.