We’ve seen the pairs event become more and more exciting in the Grand Prix series, and there’s no doubt that it will be more exciting, now that we’ll be seeing the six best teams in the circuit compete in the Final. But with excitement comes unpredictability. Most of these teams have earned personal and season’s best during the GP series, and there’s no telling who’s going to be on top of that podium, but we’ll do our best to guess.

GOLD: Wenjing Sui / Cong Han (CHN)
It’s clear that Sui / Han have established themselves as the clear favorites to win the Grand Prix Final title after winning bronze in their last two trips. They’ve started their Grand Prix competitions strong, breaking the world record for the free skate in the process. Their performance in Shanghai Trophy was not as solid as their previous competitions, so it will be a matter of skating cleanly in order to figure in the top two.

SILVER: Evgenia Tarasova / Vladimir Morozov (RUS)
Tarasova / Morozov will be coming to Nagoya to defend their Grand Prix Final title, though it will be difficult now that Sui / Han and Savchenko / Massot are now in the picture. The team can pull off outstanding performances, but they could also make uncharacteristic mistakes that could cost them the title. With Sui / Han and Savchenko / Massot’s tendencies to score higher on PCS, Tarasova / Morozov will have to rely on solid technique to defend their title.

BRONZE: Aljona Savchenko / Bruno Massot (GER)
Savchenko / Massot will be making their first Grand Prix Final as a team, though Savchenko has been a staple in the GPF for nine seasons already. It is unclear whether they will be bringing back the throw triple axel, but we’ve seen wonders happen when they opted to leave it out and went for consistency.

FOURTH: Meagan Duhamel / Eric Radford (CAN)
Despite a confidence-boosting victory in Skate Canada, Duhamel / Radford fell to bronze in Skate America due to uncharacteristic mistakes. It looks like they’ll be keeping the throw quad sal, but the rest of the elements need to be perfect in order to figure in podium contention.

FIFTH: Ksenia Stolbova / Fedor Klimov (RUS)
Being in the bottom half of the predicted Grand Prix Final standings is probably not where the defending Olympic silver medalists want to be. Still, while other teams in the field struggle with consistency, Stolbova / Klimov are perhaps the team most prone to more mistakes than the others.

SIXTH: Xiaoyu Yu / Hao Zhang (CHN)
We’ve seen the strokes of brilliance Yu / Zhang were capable of in the free skate. With the depth of the field, however, it will take a personal best skate for them to beat the others and move up the predicted standings.

Published December 5, 2017