Keegan Messing wins bronze, then does a backflip over the silver medalist at Canada’s figure skating championships

Keegan Messing of Anchorage reached the podium for the third straight year at Canada’s national figure skating championships on Saturday.

Messing, a 2018 Olympian who will turn 28 next week, took the bronze medal after suffering a pair of falls in his long program at the Paramount Fine Foods Centre in Mississauga, Ontario.

He was less than two points behind silver medalist Nam Nguyen, and both men finished well behind gold medalist Roman Sadovsky.

Messing won Friday night’s short program but couldn’t hold onto his lead in Saturday’s long program.

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Sadovsky, third in the short program, had an outstanding long program worth 175.55 points to vault past Messing and Nguyen, who was second both nights.

Sadovsky finished with 260.57 points to earn Canada’s lone men’s berth in the World Championships. Nguyen was second with 243.51 and Messing third with 241.79.

Messing and Nguyen are close friends, and after the awards ceremony Messing did a backflip over a prone Nguyen at center ice.

Messing took the silver medal in 2018 and bronze last year. He is a longtime Alaskan who has dual citizenship because his mom was born in Canada. He started skating for Canada in the 2014-15 season, and placed 12th at the 2018 Winter Olympics.