THE CANADIAN PRESS

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MERANO, Italy - Tarrah Harvey of Vancouver and Keith Gagnon of Surrey, B.C., missed out on a medal by the narrowest of margins Saturday, finishing fourth in ice dancing on the ISU Junior Grand Prix figure skating circuit.

Americans Madison Chock and Greg Zuerlein won the gold medal with a score of 156.52 points, Ekaterina Riazanova and Jonathan Guerreiro of Russia were second with 149.42, while Lorenza Alessandrini and Simone Vaturi of Italy finished third with 142.01.

Harvey and Gagnon followed at 141.41. Harvey said a time violation on their lift near the end of the program potentially cost them the medal.

"Our last lift is a move we have to be careful with," said Harvey. "We've been working on trying to get it exactly on time. We are only allowed to hold it for six seconds we went just a bit over so we get a deduction for that.

"Still, the whole program felt awesome. Everything went really well. We've been training really hard this summer and we showed we were ready."

Harvey and Gagnon, who have been skating together for 10 years, impressed the crowd with their new free dance program that has an Alice and Wonderland-type theme.

"My favourite moment was at the start when I tip-toe towards her and the crowd was already giggling," said Gagnon. "When you have that feeling that people are already into your performance it's pretty exciting."

Sophie Knippel of Ottawa and Andrew Britten of Dundas, Ont., were seventh.

In men's singles, Michal Brezina of the Czech Republic climbed from third spot to win the gold with a strong long program. American Curran Oi of the U.S., was second while Alexander Nikolaev of Russia finished third.

Ronald Lam of Coquitlam, B.C., was sixth while Dave Ferland of Metabetchouan, Que., climbed six positions to finish 12th.

Lam struggled in his long program, missing his two triple Lutz jumps.

"I usually never have trouble with the Lutz," Lam said. "I just pulled back a little bit on both of them. The spins and artistry were not too bad and kept me up there. Still, it was a bit of a struggle but I got through it."

The third stop on the circuit is September 11-13 in Mexico City.