The^50th edition of Skate Canada International (SCI) continued this Saturday, October 26, at the Scotiabank Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with reigning World Pair Champions Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps retaining the SCI crown for the second year running.

Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier also made their ice dance debut, and are in first place going into the final day of competition on Sunday.

Stellato-Dudek, of Chicago, USA, and Deschamps, of Vaudreuil-Dorion, Quebec, had a strong lead going into Saturday's competition, which enabled them to retain their title despite problems with some of their jumps and throws that saw them finish second in the free program with a score of 124.10 points. They finished the day with a total score of 197.33 points to take gold ahead of Ekaterina Geynish and Dmitrii Chigirev of Uzbekistan, who won silver (189.65 points), and Anastasia Golubeva and Hektor Giotopoulos Moore of Australia, who took bronze (186.14 points).

“ It wasn't easy tonight,” commented Deschamps after the competition. "It's sometimes like that, and we have to learn from it and move on. The good thing is that we're going to learn from it. When things go wrong, you learn. When things go well, you don't learn much.

Skate Canada International concludes on Sunday with medal presentations in ice dance and men's competition.