Some Grand Prix thoughts before the big show in Beijing
For the most part, it's been a successful fall season for Canadian skaters. But there are still some areas that need work as we approach the national championships
Okay everyone, time to take a deep breath. The wild ride through the Grand Prix Series has reached its conclusion, and now we get a free weekend to ponder everything we saw before the Grand Prix Final caps off the fall season next week in Beijing.
For Canadian skaters, it’s been a wildly successful season so far — at least in ice dance and pairs — with competitors from those two disciplines providing eight teams’ worth of entries at the Final. No doubt there are plenty of smiles within Skate Canada about all of that.
The men and women? Let’s just say there’s still work to do there.
We’ve examined the ice dance and pairs success stories in this space the past two weeks (you’ll find those deeper dives here and here, if you missed them). With the benefit of plenty of hindsight, a few general thoughts about what we’ve seen so far from a Canadian perspective — and with a bit of an eye toward the national championships in Calgary about six weeks from now (yes folks, it really isn’t all that far away).
The senior ice dance event in Calgary is going to be fabulous
We alluded to this a bit last week, but no event at the Canadian championships is going to be more highly anticipated than ice dance. The country currently has three strong entries in the discipline, and every one of them made an impression during the Grand Prix season — so much so that Canada will have three entries in ice dance at the Final for the very first time.
Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier head to Beijing as the defending champions in the event, and with a World-leading score of 219.01 (earned at Skate Canada International) on their resume. With gold medals in Vancouver and in China, the reigning World bronze medallists finished as top qualifiers in ice dance for the Final. They’ll face some fierce competition to add another gold in Beijing, with the field there also including 2023 World champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States and two other teams who won gold medals in the Series — Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson of Great Britain (NHK Trophy) and Italy’s Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri (France).
The field in Beijing is rounded out by two more Canadian entries, both of whom earned a pair of silver medals on the Grand Prix circuit. That would be reigning Canadian champions Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Soerensen (France and Finland), and 2023 national silver medallists Majorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha (Skate America and China). So lots of opportunity to see the red maple leaf represented in Beijing.
Pairs is undergoing a Canadian renaissance
It wasn’t all that long ago that you’d see a senior pairs entry list at the Canadian championships and maybe see six or seven entries. And you’d wonder what had become of the event in this country. Well, wonder no more. Pairs in Canada are in mighty fine shape these days.
Want proof of that? Look no further than the Grand Prix Final, where Canada produced the first and third qualifiers for Beijing. Reigning national champions Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps have been the stars of the fall season, producing gold medals in all three events they’ve entered (Autumn Classic International, Skate Canada and Cup of China), all the while looking like a team that will seriously challenge for the World title in March in Montreal — something a Canadian team last won in 2016 (when Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford claimed their second straight World crown).
Then there’s the story of Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud, the still very new team that won a surprising gold medal at Grand Prix de France after earlier landing in the silver medal position at Skate America. They’ve put themselves into position to be podium contenders at the Final.
Canada also has half of the six pair entries in the junior event at the Final. That’s also never happened before. Clearly, both the present and future of pairs in this country is in very good hands.
Maddie Schizas has separated herself from the women’s field
Remember when we talked back in the summer about the potential for a fiercely competitive women’s event in Calgary? At this point, we may have to walk back that thought a little bit.
A new-look Maddie Schizas has made it clear she wants a third straight women’s crown at the Canadian championships — and a whole lot more than that. The 20-year-old from Oakville, Ontario, was spectacular at Skate Canada International, where she placed second in the free skate and finished fourth overall, and added a fifth-place effort at Cup of China. She showed she’s got the goods to put on a dominant show in Calgary.
Quite frankly, we saw very little out of any other Canadian women this fall. Kaiya Ruiter, the silver medallist at 2023 nationals, had a rough outing at Skate Canada and placed 10th. Fiona Bombardier, who earned the bronze in Oshawa, was 11th at Finlandia Trophy. And that’s about it.
Simply put, everyone is chasing Schizas again. And there’s a pretty wide gap between her and the rest heading into nationals in January.
The senior men’s title is still very much up for grabs
The belief here going into this season was that, in light of Keegan Messing’s retirement, the battle to succeed him as Canadian men’s champion would be wide open. And nothing has happened this fall to change that. Two of the top contenders, Wesley Chiu and Stephen Gogolev, each turned in seventh and 11th place finishes in their two Grand Prix events. Gogolev did bring home a bronze medal from Autumn Classic International, so there’s that.
We’re still waiting for 2020 Canadian champion Roman Sadovsky to make his season debut. Hampered by the lingering effects from a summer injury, Sadovsky didn’t make it to Skate Canada International. And travel issues wiped out his chance to compete at Warsaw Cup, a Challenger Series event, a few weeks back (Sadovsky made it to Poland, but his skates did not). He’ll finally lace ’em up next week at Golden Spin of Zagreb in Croatia.
All of that is to say that we are nowhere closer to picking a favourite for men’s gold in Calgary. Which is probably how we thought it would be.
“It’s wide open and everyone has a shot there. I think they all know that and you can see that this year,” said Mike Slipchuk, Skate Canada’s high performance director. “The men are continuing to keep pushing forward and we’re still looking for one or two to really take a step forward, but they’re still fighting it out. As we get through to Canadians, we’ll keep seeing that battle between a group of them (who) keep pushing each other, which is great.”
Who’s up for the Challenge?
The final step on the road to the Canadian National Skating Championships arrives this weekend, when the Skate Canada Challenge for senior and junior skaters is held at Seven Oaks Arena at Garden City Community Centre in Winnipeg. More than 200 skaters, who previously advanced through sectional competitions across the country, will compete over four days at the twin pad complex in the north end of the Manitoba capital. The Challenge begins today at 3:20 p.m. local time (4:20 p.m. ET) with the senior men’s short program and runs through Saturday.
You’ll notice some familiar names in the senior competitions. The first skater out of the gate today will be Conrad Orzel, the silver medallist in the senior men’s event at the 2023 Canadian championships. The senior women’s event in Winnipeg includes Kaiya Ruiter, Fiona Bombardier and Sara-Maude Dupuis, who finished second, third and fourth at 2023 nationals, respectively. The senior ice dance competition includes Nadiia Bashynska and Peter Beaumont, the 2023 junior national champions who have moved up to senior this season and made their Grand Prix debut earlier this month in Finland.
A live stream of all the action is available and can be accessed via Skate Canada’s website. Some detail about how Skate Canada Productions plans to cover the event can be found here.
Via Skate Canada’s Facebook page, here’s the full schedule:
