Worlds 2024: It's full speed ahead to Montreal now
With Four Continents wrapped up, the World Championships are the final destination for an elite group of Canadian skaters. Some of whom stated their case in Shanghai.
The script for Canadian skaters heading into the Four Continents Championships had been written rather emphatically since back in the fall. Great at the top in ice dance and pairs, but in the men’s and women’s events … um, not so much. Wash, rinse and repeat.
So it was not exactly too surprising that we got more of the same in Shanghai last week. Canadians brought home three medals from the competition, including golds in dance (Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier) and pairs (Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps), and a silver in ice dance (Laurence Fournier-Beaudry and Nikolaj Soerensen).
Four Continents also represented the last major senior competition before the world comes to Montreal next month. Meaning Skate Canada should have all the data it’s going to get before selecting its team for the World Championships at the Bell Centre, for which the deadline is Feb. 26. That date is now less than three weeks away.
Some thoughts as we enter a bit of a dead period in the skating world ….
This might be Gilles and Poirier’s best shot at a World title
First off, it was hard to believe that these two had never won a Four Continents title until last weekend. But here they are. And now the two-time World bronze medallists are firmly focused on Montreal, where they will take another run at a gold medal on the biggest stage of the season. And they left Shanghai riding a wave of momentum.
“It's such a big milestone in our career, so I think we're really proud of ourselves to be able to win a competition of this calibre at this point in our career,” Poirier said afterward. “I think we're really proud of the way we skated. This week, we really believed in ourselves. We were present in both programs, and we skated like the champions that we are. So I think more than anything, that's what we're going to take (away).”
In all likelihood, we’re looking at a three-horse race for gold in ice dance at Worlds between the Canadians, reigning World champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States, and Italy’s Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri. Back in December, the Americans scored a decisive victory at the Grand Prix Final the last time these three teams met, and they’ll feel right at home in Montreal (it’s where they live and train). But Canada is home to Gilles and Poirier, and they’ll be the crowd favourites at the Bell Centre. Perhaps that’ll be the extra push they need to climb onto the top of the World podium. They may never get a better opportunity than this.
What’s the holdup with naming the World team?
In a word, injuries. Most notably in ice dance, where Majorie Lajoie’s concussion kept her out of both the Canadian Championships and Four Continents. When healthy, Lajoie and Lagha are a team that can easily target a top six finish at Worlds (the fact they made the Grand Prix Final is testament to that). Along with the two medal-winning teams at Four Continents, the return of Lajoie and Lagha would give Canada the best collection of ice dance entries in Montreal. So you know Skate Canada is holding off on naming its team as long as possible in the hope Lajoie will be good to go at the Bell Centre about five weeks from right now.
There’s a similar story at play in pairs, another event in which Canada has three entries at Worlds. No doubt about the first two: Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps will head to Montreal as one of the favourites for gold, while Canadian silver medallists Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud have continued their upward trend (they were sixth at the GP Final and fifth at Four Continents). But we haven’t seen Brooke McIntosh and Benjamin Mimar this calendar year as her fractured foot heals. Kelly Ann Laurin and Loucas Ethier have stepped up in their absence, produced a well-earned bronze medal at Canadians and placed eighth at Four Continents. So there’s a decision to be made between these two teams for that coveted third Worlds spot.
Wesley Chiu has earned his ticket to Montreal
Regular readers here will know I’ve been pumping Chiu’s tires for much of this season, and he made me look mighty good with his breakthrough triumph at the Canadian Championships in Calgary. But you know Skate Canada wanted to see more of the same from him at Four Continents and oh, did the young man from Richmond, British Columbia, deliver again. He was clearly the No. 1 Canadian in the men’s event in Shanghai, meaning he should be headed to Montreal — one year after he competed at junior Worlds.
It was said in this space a few weeks back that if Chiu took care of business, then Four Continents likely represented a skate off between Roman Sadovsky and Conrad Orzel for the second Canadian spot at Worlds. And if the results at this event mean anything (and they surely do), then it’s Sadovsky likely on his way to Montreal — he finished 10th overall, seven places higher than Orzel, who made his Worlds debut a year ago in Japan.
The old Maddie was back at Four Continents
You know Skate Canada officials had their eyes keenly on Maddie Schizas at Four Continents, especially after her long program meltdown in Calgary that opened the door for Kaiya Ruiter to seize the Canadian title. Safe to say that Schizas eased some of those concerns in Shanghai.
After placing ninth in the short program, Schizas produced her second-best free program of the season and rose to sixth place in the final standings. And that, no doubt, should make Skate Canada feel very comfortable sending her to Montreal (Ruiter is entered in the World Junior Championships that begin at the end of this month in Taipei City).
That book we’re all talking about
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, dear skating observer, you’ve no doubt heard that Gracie Gold released a book this week. A scorchingly honest memoir that those who have toured through the whole thing already will tell you is a difficult read in parts (I’m just a few chapters into it, so I have yet to reach those cringy areas. But I know they’re coming).
To say that Gold, a two-time United States champion, has been through a lot in her life would be the most massive of understatements. The title of the book —Outofshapeworthlessloser: A Memoir of Figure Skating, F*cking Up, and Figuring It Out — should tell you all you need to know about it in that respect. There are stories of family dysfunction, eating disorders, suicidal thoughts and, most shockingly, a rape she endured at 21 years old that is just being revealed now. It is a harrowing tale that befell a skater who, starting with the 2014 Sochi Olympics, was seen as America’s darling and a future champion of the world and beyond. But none of that happened.
All of this got me thinking about the time, back in 2015, when I did a lengthy phone interview with Gold for International Figure Skating Magazine. Reading over that story a few days ago, it’s clear that Gold, then 20 years old (she’s 28 now), came across as a driven, confident skater who believed she could be the best on the planet. Worlds was in Boston that season (in the area of the U.S. where she was born) and the idea of winning the women’s title was clearly front and centre in her mind. And entirely possible.
“It’s Boston, it’s my town and I want it to be my year at Worlds.” she said back then. “It sounds like I’m talking big … but I want to win Worlds, not just be on the podium. I feel like, why don’t I just go out and win it?”
(That kind of honest talk always made Gold a dream interview).
The other thing I remember about that interview was, when our conversation was done, Gold saying “that was really fun.” (hey, we spent 20 minutes talking about her and Taylor Swift. How can that not be fun, right?). So it was for me, too (Gold came across to me as someone very likeable and cool to talk to), which was why it was, as her struggles with mental health and eating disorders in the years that followed came to light, that I kept wishing that “fun” could be a part of her world a little more again.
That Worlds in Boston is kind of where her downward spiral began. She won the short program there and was poised to become a World champion. But then it all fell apart in the free and she tumbled to fourth place. So not even a medal of any colour. Interviewed on NBC afterward, Gold gave a masterclass in how to beat yourself up after a failure. She was so hard on herself, it was cringe-worthy. But that’s how much she wanted to win.
A few months later, I interviewed Ashley Wagner, another skater known for raw honesty in interviews and Gold’s biggest American rival at the time. Wagner skated to an emotional silver medal in Boston, one her greatest career triumphs, and we talked a lot about all of that. Near the end of that interview, the conversation shifted to Gold. And I asked Wagner if I thought she’d been far too hard on herself about what transpired, that maybe she should have cut herself a little more slack. Here’s how Wagner responded:
“I do, I do. I think the reason she is so successful in this sport is because she’s the ultimate Type A personality — I’m going to go and get what I want — and I’m the exact same way. I do think, though, that she’s really tough on herself. I know she was disappointed, and I’ve been in those shoes where you’re being interviewed right after something, you’re highly emotional and it’s a recipe for disaster. I definitely understand where she’s coming from, but I do think she was too hard on herself.”
Sadly, it would manifest itself over the following year in destructive ways, leading her to check herself into The Meadows in Arizona in the fall of 2017 for 45 days of inpatient treatment for her addictions. She has come a long way since then, and it was heartening to see this interview on the Today show earlier this week. She smiled easily at various points and seemed a person in a much better place in life right now. And thinking back to that woman I had so much fun chatting with back in 2015 … well, it made me smile, too. I’m hoping that by the end of her book, I’ll see even more of that contentment.