体坛英语新闻：Canada pair dance off with gold at worlds

NICE, France, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir of Canada beat defending champions Meryl Davis/Charlie White of the United States to win their second world title of dancing at the figure skating world championships on Thursday.

Davis/White had to be content with a silver and Nathalie Pechalat/Fabian Bourzat of France earned the bronze in what was a high-level ice dance event.

Virtue/Moir skated last out of the 20 couples and gave an entertaining performance to "Funny Face", getting into the characters of Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire.

The Olympic champions completed difficult footwork and lifts, picking up a level four for seven out of eight elements to score a total of 182.65 points.

"It feels amazing. It was a perfect ending of the season for us. It wasn't a magical skate, and we had to fight through the elements and really rely on our training," said Moir.

"The sweetest part of the season was the ability to train to all our potential. That was our big reward this year, enjoying the training and we did," he said.

"To be honest it wasn't the best we've skated this program this season. But that's why we train and that we got all the mileage on the program we can rely on even we didn't feel necessarily a 100 percent. It's great to get the victory. We're thrilled with our season," Virtue added.

Davis/White produced a dynamic Waltz from "Die Fledermaus" that was highlighted by excellent lifts and fast twizzles to score 178.62 points.

"We're a little disappointed because we felt we skated our season best performance and we wanted our season best scores at worlds. But we skated our hearts out and left it all on the ice today. Although we're going home just with a silver, we're going home with a lot of pride, in how we presented ourselves and our programs," White said.

"It was a great season for us - last year we felt a lot of pressure to make history. The scores weren't what we were looking for but we can't control that and we're satisfied with what we did," Davis noted.

Alena Leonova of Russia captured the first place in the ladies' short program with Japan's Kanako Murakami and Italy's Carolina Kostner following in second and third place respectively.

Leonova turned in a strong performance of her "Pirates of the Caribbean" program and nailed a triple toe-triple toe combination, a triple flip and double Axel.

The Grand Prix final bronze medalist picked up a level four for the three spins and the footwork to post a new season best of 64.61 points.

Murakami's routine to "Violin Muse" featured a triple toe-triple toe, triple flip, double Axel and level-four spins as well. The 2010 World Junior champion scored 62.67 points.

Kostner landed a triple toe-triple toe combination and the double Axel, but doubled the loop. The four-time European champion earned 61.00 points.