Canada's 'remarkable' run of pairs success
The Red Maple Leaf is becoming a familiar sight on the top of the Grand Prix podium, with two teams from the Great White North having a fall season to truly remember.
Dig through the figure skating archives from years gone by, and you’ll find plenty of history authored by Canadian pairs teams. If you’re a longtime fan of the sport, you’re very familiar with the names of four-time World champions Barbara Wagner and Robert Paul, or Frances Dafoe and Norris Bowden, who claimed a pair of global titles of their own.
Those of a more contemporary vintage will no doubt remember the golden skates of a lifetime that Barb Underhill and Paul Martini produced at the 1984 World Championships in Ottawa. And anyone who was there in Vancouver in 2001 (that would include me) won’t soon forget the dramatic World title earned by Jamie Sale and David Pelletier (who would go on to become Olympic champions in Salt Lake City a year later).
Prague was a golden place for Canadian pairs twice — Otto and Maria Jelinek in1962, Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler, three decades plus a year later in 1993. Meagan Duhamel and Eric Redford went back to back in 2015 and 2016, making them the first repeat World gold medallists in pairs from Canada since the legendary Wagner and Paul in the 1950s.
All of this is to say that pair skaters have done the Red Maple Leaf proud on plenty of occasions over the years. And perhaps it adds a little bit of perspective to what we’ve seen on the Grand Prix circuit already this season. Reigning Canadian champions Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps, along with the relatively new pairing of Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud, have taken turns climbing onto the podium over the past four weekends. Three weekends in a row, that colour has been gold and ‘O Canada’ has played at the medal ceremony — something I’m quite positive we’ve never seen before on the Grand Prix Series.
While Skate Canada had high hopes for pairs success this fall, this has exceeded even their expectations. Both teams have already locked up spots in the Grand Prix Final in December in Beijing — the first time in more than a decade that Canada has had two pair entries in that prestigious event (Duhamel and Radford were fourth at the Olympic test event in Sochi in 2012, with Kirsten Moore-Towers and Dylan Moscovitch placing fifth).
“We felt that if they did well in their two events, they could put themselves in a good position to qualify for the Final,” Mike Slipchuk, Skate Canada’s high performance director, told your faithful scribe earlier this week. “To finish the four events and have three gold medals and a silver is pretty remarkable, and it’s a testament to the athletes and the coaches and the work they put in. Just how they’ve performed this year, it’s well deserved and everything they’ve achieved, they’ve definitely earned this year.”
Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps have been on a golden run through the entire fall season, starting with a victory in September at Autumn Classic International in Pierrefonds, Quebec. They followed that up with another triumph at Skate Canada International in Vancouver — an event in which they produced massive personal best scores for the free skate and overall total — and added a third gold at Cup of China this past weekend. They will arrive at the Final as one of the favourites to climb onto the top step of the podium.
Oh, and did we mention Stellato-Dudek is doing all of this at 40 years old? (her partner is 31). They’ve quickly become one of the stories of the year in all of figure skating.
“Over the past two seasons, they’ve looked at where they needed to be stronger to be competitive with the top (teams) in the world, and they’ve done their work. This season, all the areas that they wanted to be better at — speed and flow and strength of elements that they have — it’s been evident in the three events that they have been at,” said Slipchuk. “They’ve increased their scores dramatically in one season and it’s exciting to see they are right there scoring with people who have been on the podium at Worlds. They put the work in and continue to develop and continue to improve. You just can’t sit idle anymore, you’ve got to keep pushing, and they definitely do that.”
The story of Pereira and Michaud, who have been together for just 15 months, is quite something in its own way. They were bronze medallists at nationals in January in Oshawa, Ontario, then two months later — in just their sixth event — the duo placed sixth at the World Championships in Japan. This season, Pereira and Michaud earned a silver medal at Skate America, the opening event of the Grand Prix Series. Then two weeks later, they were golden at Grand Prix de France in Angers, where they finished in front of the reigning World bronze medallists from Italy. Next up: the Grand Prix Final.
You’d be right in thinking all of this is happening in a hurry.
“The biggest thing there is that Lia had done pairs prior (to this) at the novice level, so she had an understanding of pairs. And then you pair up with Trennt, who is such a solid pair skater — one of the best pair boys in the country — so you know the pairing up is going to be strong,” said Slipchuk. “How long it takes them to jell and develop … you never know. They just really meshed quickly and really took off fast. For Lia and Trennt to be top six in the world in their first year, and then to win a medal at two Grand Prixs is definitely a testament to that pairing and again, the potential and work that they’ve put in. It’s encouraging to see where this is going to go.”
The good news for Canadian pairs doesn’t stop there. When the Junior Grand Prix Final is held in Beijing, half of the six entries in that discipline — Martina Ariano-Kent/Charly Laliberte Laurent; Ava Kemp/Yonatan Elizarov, and Jazmine Desrochers/Kieran Thrasher — will wear the Red Maple Leaf on their back of their team jackets. That’s also a first for Canadian skating.
None of this has happened by accident. It’s part of a Skate Canada initiative launched a few years back to build up the pair team depth in the country, with the interest level ideally growing in training centres from coast to coast.
“The purpose of that (plan) was to help create more pair opportunities in the country, but also to create a bigger pool of coaches across the country that can coach pairs,” said Slipchuk. “The pair training has tended to be regionalized, with your top coaches usually being in the Toronto or Montreal area. Through this national pair initiative, we were able to get coaches from almost all provinces come in and get an understanding of pairs.
“As we move to the Final here, we have Ava and Yohny who are from Manitoba — that’s where they started, and now we have a team from Manitoba at the Final. And a lot of the other skaters are from various parts of the country who have moved into partnerships that have just been very positive and very productive. It’s exciting for the program, especially at the junior level, and it’ll help create that pair depth that we’ve always looked for.”
What’s also helped is having a number of recent Canadian champions — a group that includes three-time national titleists Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro — move into the coaching ranks this season. They’ve all been there, done that.
“Kirsten has started coaching in B.C., and she’s out at the Richmond club. She started a pair program there and Mike Marinaro is working in Milton and Brantford, and he’s helping out Lia and Trennt and they’ve got some younger teams,” said Slipchuk. “And I know Eric (Radford) is doing some pair coaching in Montreal. When you’re able to have skaters that have been at the highest level of competing and then they move into the coaching ranks, it only helps build that depth.”
More frustration for Sadovsky
It’s been a fall of frustration so far for Roman Sadovsky. And another chapter was added to that story this weekend, when the 2020 Canadian men’s champion had to withdraw from the Warsaw Cup, a Challenger Series event. While Sadovsky managed to make it to the Polish capital without issue, the same couldn’t be said for his luggage — and most importantly, his skates — which didn’t arrive in time for him to compete.
Warsaw Cup was to mark the season debut for Sadovsky, who had to pull out of Skate Canada International in October because of the lingering effects of an ankle injury he suffered in training during the summer (something he detailed at Skate Canada’s high performance camp at the end of August). Skate Canada had hoped to get him out to a pair of Challenger events before Christmas, but the travel issues this weekend scuttled part of that plan. There is only one Challenger event left this season, in December in Croatia.
“Because of the injury, he was off for a fair amount of time. We did look at trying to get him out to Finland but he definitely wasn’t at a point to compete yet. With Skate Canada, Tracy (coach Wainman) made the decision that he wasn’t where you want to be for a Grand Prix,” said Slipchuk. “Regardless of whether you had an injury or not, when you step out to compete, you’re on a level playing field. Your injury is irrelevant. So they’ve made the right choices.
“The decision with Roman is that because he’s just building back up, let’s do two Challengers and let’s get back out competing, just get that mileage … he’s healthy, he’s been training well and he just needs to get back into competition. That’s the big thing.”
And now Sadovsky will have to wait a little bit longer yet.
Dancing to the Finnish line
The fifth stop on the Grand Prix Series is in Finland, and it’s a big weekend in Espoo for two Canadian ice dance teams in particular.
For Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Soerensen, it’s a chance to secure a ticket to the Grand Prix Final for a second straight season (they were sixth a year ago in Torino, Italy). The Canadian duo, who have already banked a silver medal at Grand Prix de France this season, are in prime position to duplicate that result in Espoo. In Friday’s rhythm dance, they posted a season’s best score of 82.62 with their “Top Gun” themed program. That put them solidly in second spot behind reigning World champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States, who earned an 85.61 score (both teams train at the powerhouse Ice Academy of Montreal).
Should Fournier Beaudry and Soerensen earn a Grand Prix Final spot this weekend, it would give Canada half the ice dance entries in Beijing. Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, the gold medallists at the Final last year, are back again after ascending to the top step of the podium at Cup of China. Fellow Canadians Majorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha, who won the rhythm dance in China, qualified for their first Grand Prix Final with a silver medal there.
Espoo also marks the senior Grand Prix debut for Canada’s Nadiia Bashynska and Peter Beaumont, who are coming off a highly decorated final season as juniors, which included a gold medal at the Junior Grand Prix Final, their first Canadian title and a bronze medal at the World Junior Championships. At a Challenger Series event earlier this season (Nepela Memorial), they placed seventh in a field of 16 teams.
“I’m excited to see how they do in Espoo. When you move into senior, it’s a bit of a jump,” said Slipchuk. “They bring a lot to the table, they’re a strong team. I think we’ll see them in the middle of the group there. They’re going to keep growing and getting stronger. The extra year of junior last year was a good decision. They were put in (a position) where the expectation was to win, which they did. I think it showed this year was a really good transition time for them to go into senior. They’ll step into the mix of it pretty quick.”
Bashynska and Beaumont stand eighth after the rhythm dance (67.68).
Canada’s only other entry in Espoo is in pairs, with Brooke McIntosh and Benjamin Mimar standing fifth after the short program. They finished sixth at Finlandia Trophy in the same building in Espoo back in October.
The free programs in all events in Finland are set for Saturday.