Canadian ice dancing star Tessa Virtue wished for one thing midway through the original dance at Skate Canada on Saturday.

"Can I please start over? Can I just go back and start from the beginning?'' she thought as she slipped and propped through some transitional moves, that fortunately for her, weren't part of elements that counted.

Virtue slipped twice on these moves, but because her backside never hit the ice - partner Scott Moir deftly caught her and pulled her back into the dance - they didn't suffer deductions for a fall.

Virtue and Moir are the world bronze medallists and the most highly ranked skaters in the event. Even though the two main faux pas, they finished with the highest scores in the original dance and are still in the lead going into Sunday's free dance.

Virtue and Moir received top marks for the original dance (60.57) and currently have 101.26, a comfortable lead over the French team, Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat, who did a butt-slapping cowboy routine. They are almost 10 points behind, in spite of the Canadian's mistakes.

In third place overall are Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje of Waterloo, Ont., who are skating in front of a home crowd. With the large group cheering them on loudly, Weaver and Poje made a breakthrough in their career, finished fourth in the original dance behind Americans Emily Samuelson and Evan Bates. But overall, the Canadian bronze medalists are still ahead with 83.36 points to the Americans' 82.96.

Virtue said she just felt off balance. "I couldn't quite get over my skates,'' she said. "It was just a bobble. It was kind of a fluke thing. We've been training this program really well and we're so prepared. It was kind of a shock to us.''

"It kind of got away from us, but we fought through it and our elements were pretty strong,'' Moir said.

Virtue and Moir got only a level two of difficulty (the highest is four) for their midline step sequence.

"We're not really concerned about it,'' he said. "To go out there and skate like that was a little bit disappointing for the two of us.''

Virtue said the narrow confines of the rink and the sharp corners did not affect their routine. And she said her long billowing skirt was not a factor either. She said she trains every day in a similar long skirt and has had no problems."I wish I could say that's what it was,'' she said. "I don't know if I was trying too hard. I just couldn't do it.''

Unfortunately, she said, although the mistakes didn't prove costly, they interrupted the speed and the flow of the routine. "We've been trying to build more speed and power and that just kind of gets lost [with the mistakes],'' she said.

The particular set of connecting steps that they stumbled on were their favourites, she said.

"We're already putting this behind us,'' Moir said.