Japan's Yuna Aoki leads women’s event at Grand Prix de France despite shaky combo

Yuna Aoki raised her game to take a surprise lead before Olympic bronze medallist Ami Nakai made a costly mistake on an eventful first day of competition in the figure skating Grand Prix series on Friday in Angers, France.

Skating to Can't Take My Eyes Off You, the Japanese athlete opened her short program with a shaky triple lutz-triple loop combination but still scored 76.13 points in the Grand Prix de France short program, putting her on track for a first Grand Prix medal in two years in Saturday's free skate.

That score is nearly five points more than Aoki's previous personal best short program, though there have been changes to the scoring system for this season.

Former European champion Anastasiia Gubanova of Georgia was second (72.63).

Nakai turned her opening triple axel into a non-scoring single but recovered, skating the rest of her program clean to place third with 70.66.

Last season's world championship bronze medallist Nina Pinzarrone was seventh on 63.19.

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Toronto’s Gabrielle Daleman was 11th of 12 skaters, scoring 55.66. She returned to skating in 2025 after two seasons away.

“Going into this season, it's really just taking it in and enjoying the time and enjoying the training and the ups and downs and just being back on the circuit and getting to do a home nationals this year,” she told CBC Sports recently.

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Skate Canada International is next week at Prospera Place in Kelowna, B.C.

Olympic ice dance champions Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron took a commanding lead in their