World champ Chan wins Skate Canada title

Reigning world champion Patrick Chan of Canada captured the Skate Canada men's title by winning the free skate final to edge short programme winner Javier Fernandez of Spain. Chan, a 20-year-old performing before hometown support in suburban Toronto, fell on a quad toe loop but hit another as judges gave him 170.46 points on a routine to music from Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo. That was enough for him to win the overall crown with 253.74 points. "I made an extra effort to stay relaxed," Chan said. "It felt good. It was a success." Chan's second Skate Canada victory in a row was not sealed until the final scores were posted for Fernandez, who took Spain's first Grand Prix podium spot on 250.33 points for second, placing second in the free skate on 165.62. Japan's Daisuke Takahashi, the 2010 world champion, was third overall on 237.87 after placing third in the free skate with 153.21 points. World junior runner-up Elizaveta Tuktamisheva and Russian compatriots Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov also captured titles on Saturday in the second stop on the season-opening ISU Grand Prix global figure skating tour. Reigning Winter Olympic champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada will try to follow up their ice dance short programme triumph on Friday by capturing the Skate Canada crown in Sunday's free dance final. Tuktamisheva won the women's title in her senior ISU Grand Prix debut after a second-place finish in the women's free skate. Japan's Akiko Suzuki, who finished fourth in Friday's short programme, bounced back to win the free skate with 119.44 points on a routine to Die Fledermaus. Tuktamisheva, who turns 15 in December, settled for the runner-up spot in the free skate with 117.81 points, but her short programme triumph was enough to give her the overall title with 177.38 points, 5.12 ahead of Suzuki. American Ashley Wagner was third in the free skate and overall. Tuktamisheva, the youngest Skate Canada women's champion since Canadian Tracey Wainman won at age 13 in 1981, said the competition was very similar to those she won at the junior level. "I didn't feel a big difference," she said through a translator. "I try not to think of the importance of the competition." While she will be unable to compete in the world championships until 2013, Tuktamisheva figures to have plenty of senior-level events behind her by the time the 2014 Winter Olympics are staged in Sochi, Russia. "Even if I'm nervous, I try to hide it," she said. "I try to approach everything calmly. There is pressure but I try not to pay attention to that too much. I just try to do my job." Volosozhar and Trankov, runners-up at the world championships last May on home ice, took the pairs title by adding the free skate victory to their short programme triumph on Friday. Trankov, 28, and Volosozhar, 25, performed to music from the film "Black Swan" and scored 130.96 points to win the free skate, taking the overall crown with 201.38 points. China's Sui Wenjing, 16, and Han Cong, 19, used a routine to Flamenco music to finish second in the free skate with 121.59 and overall with 180.82. Canada's Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford were third in the free skate with 112.47 and third overall on 174.84.