Personal best for Medvedeva while home favourites shine on opening day of Skate Canada International

Skating to 'The River Flows in You' by Lorenzo da Luca, the Russian nailed her triple flip-triple toeloop combination, a triple loop, double Axel and collected a level four for her spins and footwork to score a personal best of 76.24 points.

That saw her sit top of the leaderboard ahead of home favourite Kaetlyn Osmond and fellow Russian Elizaveta Tuktamysheva.

"My performance was really good, but I can have more speed in my spins and I can interpret my program better," said Medvedeva ahead of Saturday's free skate.

"My short program corresponds to my current situation, it is about growing up, not so much physically, but about how your inner world changes when you grow up."

Home favourites Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford took the lead in the pairs short program followed by China's Xiaoyu Yu and Hao Zhang and Canada's Liubov Iliushechkina and Dylan Moscovitch.

The Canadians scored 78.39 points for their routine, almost ten points clear of their fellow competitors.

There was further to cheer for the home fans in the ice dancing with Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir leading the standings on 77.23 from Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates after the short dance while fellow Canadian Patrick Chan grabbed the men's short program ahead of Japan's Takahito Mura and compatriot Kevin Reynolds with a score of 90.56.

Skate Canada International is the second of six events in the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Series 2016/2017.

Sportsbeat 2016