Estonia's Selevko wins bronze, Petrõkina third ahead of free skate in Canada
Estonia's Mihhail Selevko struck bronze at Skate Canada International in Kelowna, where Niina Petrõkina heads into Sunday's free skate in third after setting a personal best.
Fifth after the men's short program, Selevko climbed to third overall by winning the free skate with 169.08 points, just shy of his personal-best 169.78, set a month and a half ago. The Estonian skater finished with 248.66 points across the two programs.
Selevko also became the third Estonian figure skater to reach the podium at an International Skating Union (ISU) Grand Prix event, joining his older brother Aleksandr and training partner Niina Petrõkina.
"I fought through the entire program and was more nervous before the competition than I had been for the short program, because yesterday's event was difficult," he said. "Today I needed and wanted to do better, so I focused on every jump. I'm very happy it worked."
While placing second in both programs, France's Kevin Aymoz won his second career Grand Prix event with a combined 258.43 points, earning 168.17 for his free skate to Estonian composer Arvo Pärt's "Spiegel im Spiegel."
Japan's Rio Nakata, a two-time world junior champion, slipped to fourth in the free skate with 156.61 points but held onto second overall with 249.25 in his senior Grand Prix debut.
Personal-best short program
In the women's event, two-time European champion Niina Petrõkina sits third heading into Sunday's free skate after setting a personal-best 77.24 in the short program, edging out her previous best of 77.20 set in Italy six weeks ago.
Petrõkina delivered a clean program, executing all her jumps without error and earning the highest rating, Level 4, on all her other elements.
Japan's Mao Shimada, a four-time world junior champion who turned 18 on Friday, won the short program with a personal-best 82.11 points, including 49.23 points for her technical elements, the third-highest score ever.
American Isabeau Levito, another former world junior champion who won gold in Tallinn in 2022, was second with 78.50 points in her first competition of the season.
The 2026 Skate Canada International is the second of seven events in the 2026 ISU Figure Skating Grand Prix series, which concludes with the final in Chongqing, China, in December.
The women's free skate in Kelowna begins Sunday at 10 p.m. Estonian time.
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Editor: Maarja Värv, Aili Vahtla
