KITCHENER, Ont. - Anabelle Langlois spent a good chunk of last season wondering if she'd ever skate again, while Cody Hay spent the season wondering if he'd forever be skating alone.

The Canadian pairs team, sidelined all of last season after Langlois broke her foot, skated their way back onto the Grand Prix circuit Friday, finishing fourth in the short program at HomeSense Skate Canada International.

Langlois, from Hull, Que., broke her foot more than a year ago during choreography that led to a pair of surgeries, one to repair the injury and the second to remove the metal plate and screws.

"I thought for sure we were going to be at Skate Canada (last fall in Ottawa),'' Langlois said.

"I didn't care if I was allowed to do throws a week before, that didn't faze me at all then. But the longer it took, and the more I couldn't fight it, it was really out of my control. When something that's not your choice to fight, that made me feel that I was going to have to stop.''

While the 28-year-old Langlois was laid up pondering her future, her partner from Barrie, Ont., trained alone.

"I contemplated a return to singles skating,'' Hay joked.

But Langlois wasn't about to throw in the towel on her Olympic dream.

"I can't quit, that's probably a quality and a big flaw of mine, I'm not a very good quitter,'' Langlois said.

Langlois, the 26-year-old Hay and their coach Lee Barkell were convinced the metal plate in her foot was causing her pain, and urged the doctors to remove it.

"We were in agreement that that was my last chance, and we really pressed the doctor to take it out, it wasn't a medical decision,'' Langlois said.

"Originally they wanted to take it out after the Games, and as soon as they took it out, I knew it was fine.''

Langlois was finally able to get back on the ice this past May and now skating "hardware-free,'' she hopes she and Hay, the 2008 Canadian champions, can vy for a spot on the Vancouver Olympic team.

The two, skating to "Fascination,'' scored 55.52 for their short program, their only obvious misstep coming when Langlois's skate lace got caught on a hook on the bottom of Hay's pants going into the backward outside death spiral.

"I was trying to shake it off, when I didn't get it off the first two kicks I thought we might have to stop, but I got it free,'' Hay said.

Added Langlois: "That fluke in the middle, that's never happened and that kind of dragged something down, it's just in our head, we were thinking 'oh that's kind of a glitch.'''

World champions Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy, skated to a commanding lead scoring 74.16 points. Russians Maria Mukhortova and Maxim Trankov were second with 65.80, while Jessica Dube of St-Cyrille-de-Wendover, Que., and Bryce Davison of Huntsville, Ont., finished third with 57.90.