Los Angeles (AFP) - Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates won their third Four Continents ice dance title on Sunday with a new personal-best score of 220.81 points.
The veteran US duo, who won world championships bronze last year, stamped themselves medal contenders again for the worlds coming up next month in Saitama, Japan.
They looked stunned as a career-best free dance score of 133.14 flashed on the scoreboard to confirm a third title in the event for skaters from non-European countries, held this year in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
But Bates said they'd been working hard after a runner-up finish to Canadians Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier at the Grand Prix Final in early December, paying close attention to conditioning to allow them to compete well at high altitude in Colorado.
"We put in a lot of work in December after the Grand Prix Final," Bates said."We knew there was going to be less oxygen in the building and worked really hard to be ready for it."
They finished ahead of Canadians Laurence Fournier-Beaudry and Nikolaj Sorensen, their training mates in Montreal who posted career best scores of their own of 127.80 and 214.08 to take silver.
Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha of Canada took bronze with a total score of 200.00.
