Some thoughts as we near Grand Prix finish line
It hasn't been quite the same success story this year as in 2024, but there were still plenty of Canadian highlights throughout the big events of the fall season.
As we write this, the Grand Prix Series has concluded its feverish run through the fall months — save for the Final in France early in December, that is.
And what a whirlwind it has been over the past six weeks or so. By late morning Eastern time on Saturday, the entry list for Grenoble was complete. Canadians will be well represented at the Final, at least in two events, but not quite to the same level the red maple leaf was a year ago in Beijing.
It’s probably no surprise, then, that the series finale at Cup of China produced its best results for Canadians in the usual places. We’ll dive into that a little bit more as we make our way through this column.
(what a way to bury the lede, as we journalism types like to say, right?)
While we plan to go a little more in-depth on the Final over the next few weeks, we thought now might also be a good time to offer up some reflections on what we’ve seen so far — and what it might mean for Canadian skaters as we flip the calendar over to 2025 in a very short time.
Canada is still a major force in ice dance
You’re forgiven if your response to the above statement is “okay, Captain Obvious,” or something along those lines. Let’s just say it’s not exactly the most out-on-a-limb statement this guy has ever made in this space.
But still …
For the second straight season, Canada will have multiple ice dance entries at the Grand Prix Final. Sure, it isn’t the historic three-team bonanza of a year ago and, quite frankly, it’s hardly a surprise when the No. 2 and No. 5 ranked teams on the planet (based on finishes at the 2024 World Championships in Montreal) end up in an elite six-team event at the end of the fall season.
But still …
It’s worthy of celebration that the Piper Gilles/Paul Poirier and Marjorie Lajoie/Zachary Lagha tandems are both back for another go at the Final. The former won this event two years ago and placed third in 2023, when Lajoie and Lagha were sixth in their GP Final debut. Both results were a foreshadowing of what would happen in Montreal three months later. We’d expect to see more of the same in the wake of what we witness in Grenoble.
At Cup of China, Lajoie and Lagha punched their ticket to the Grand Prix Final with their second silver medal of the Grand Prix season, finishing behind Italy’s Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri while producing season’s best scores across the board. Most notably, the Canadians finished less than a point behind the world bronze medallists in the free dance (their “Sound of Silence” program remains as marvellous as ever).
“We’re very happy,” said Lajoie. “I think I speak for everybody when I say that is was very, very stressful. It’s always very stressful and it’s a big mental fight to go out there and to skate. I’m just so happy we got through it.”
What has become apparent over the past few months is that there’s not a lot of margin for error among the top five when it comes to winning events. World champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States made a mistake in the rhythm dance at Skate America, and Britain’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson danced past them for the gold. Same thing happened to Gilles and Poirier in Finland, with a fall in the free dance there allowing the “Disco Brits” to move past them in the final standings (Fear and Gibson were the only ice dancers to earn two golds on the Grand Prix).
Bottom line: You’ll need to be on top of your game to win in Grenoble.
The world champions are starting to build
When last we saw Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps in competition on home soil, they were leaving Halifax with Skate Canada International gold medals for a second straight year — but not exactly with smiles on their faces. Their new long program, in particular, didn’t go as well as they’d liked, and they knew there was work to do back in Montreal.
You absolutely know that work indeed happened, and they produced a much better effort a few weeks later in striking gold at Finlandia Trophy. They produced season’s bests for the short program and overall score, and they’re clearly trending upward. All good signs heading to the Final, where they placed third a year ago — and weren’t happy with how they skated. But they regrouped from there and well, we all know what happened at Worlds.
Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps were the top qualifiers for the Final, the only team to produce two gold medals in the Series. That should make them favourites to prevail in Grenoble in two weeks’ time.
However, the World champions won’t have Canadian company in France. That’s because Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud didn’t quite get back there this season, despite earning a bronze medal this weekend in China. A flawed program in France led to a fifth-place finish, but even two bronze medals wouldn’t have got them to the Final (last year, Pereira and Michaud had gold and silver medals on the Grand Prix).
Canadian women (finally) have more hope
We had a lot to say about this at the time, but it bears repeating here again: the Maddie Schizas we saw in Halifax is the one who can produce that coveted top 10 finish at 2025 Worlds in Boston, which would open the door for a second Canadian women’s berth at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. It’s a result that’s been elusive for female competitors from this country since Kaetlyn Osmond’s retirement after the 2017-18 season (which she concluded by winning the first World title by a Canadian woman in 45 years).
So yeah, it was big seeing that. Really big. But the challenge, as it always has been, is to replicate that kind of performance. And that didn’t quite happen this weekend in China, where Schizas finished seventh with an overall score about 10 points less than the 190.04 she recorded at SCI (a score that would have placed her ninth at 2024 Worlds in Montreal).
We said this a year ago at this point and we’ll say it again — at her best, Schizas is the favourite to win the Canadian Championships in January in Laval, Quebec. Then again, we all know how that turned out in Calgary back in January, when Kaiya Ruiter seized her first national senior women’s title. Things happen when you don’t produce the goods when it counts.
Ruiter, meanwhile, had a big weekend in Poland at the Warsaw Cup Challenger Series event. She turned in her best free skate of the season, earning a score of 115.04 that was the second-best on the day. Most importantly, Ruiter achieved the technical minimum score needed to compete at Worlds in Boston. Canada now has five women who have hit that standard (Schizas, Sara-Maude Dupuis, Uliana Shiryaeva and Katherine Medland Spence are the others), another promising situation for the future. It also suggests we might be in for a fun battle for the podium spots in Laval.
One last chance to make a men’s statement
Or so we thought. Canadian champion Wesley Chiu made it to Chongqing but never got past the practice ice at Cup of China. An injury suffered there forced Chiu to withdraw, although we’re told it’s nothing serious and he should be good to go to defend his national title in January in Laval.
But that pretty much sums up the kind of fall season it’s been for Canada’s top men. Roman Sadovsky didn’t make it to the finish line at Skate Canada International, pulling out after the short program (though he rebounded to claim a bronze medal two weeks later at Tallinn Trophy, a Challenger Series event). Stephen Gogolev had a promising weekend at SCI in Halifax (at least in the short program), then withdrew from his second scheduled Grand Prix at NHK Trophy in Japan. Injuries were the culprit on both occasions.
Meanwhile, last year’s national senior men’s silver medallist, Aleksa Rakic of Burnaby, British Columbia, turned in a solid long program at SCI and missed out on a top-five finish by less than a point. Based on that, he distinguished himself more than any of his Canadian compatriots on the Grand Prix.
As we’ve mentioned previously, we’re still looking for one of this group to assert himself as the top contender for 2025 Canadians in Laval. And after six Grand Prix events, well, we’re still waiting.
A golden international debut
It was just a week ago that we spun a rather nifty little yarn on the thrill of winning your first international medal, which struck a chord with a whole bunch of you out there. Well, we’ve got more …
How about winning your first international event? To borrow from a certain Skate Canada social media post last week … yes, Katherine Medland Spence just did THAT, and in rather emphatic fashion.
The 24-year-old from Ottawa, who trains with coaches Ken and Danielle Rose from the Richmond Training Centre north of Toronto, was assigned to the Warsaw Cup, a Challenger Series international event, after some quality domestic results this fall. And talk about making the most of that opportunity — Medland Spence won both the short and free programs, posting an overall total of 181.89 that won the competition by more than 10 points over Poland’s Ekaterina Kurakova, who finished 11th at 2024 Worlds in Montreal.
As a bonus, Medland Spence also achieved the minimum technical score for 2025 Worlds with her weekend’s work and stamped herself as a medal contender when we get to Laval in January (it should be noted that she finished just 1.37 points behind Schizas at Skate Ontario sectionals last month). It’s one heck of an achievement for a skater who endured an injury riddled season in 2023-24 and placed 13th at nationals in Calgary (she’d been in the top 10 in two previous trips to that event).
As we said earlier, the women’s event in Laval is gonna be fun.
Canada also picked up a medal in Warsaw from another entry making its international debut. That would be the first-year pairs team of Fiona Bombardier and Benjamin Mimar, who train under the tutelage of Andrew Evans at the Toronto Lakeshore Skating School. They moved up from fourth after the short program to finish in the bronze medal position by a mere 0.42 points. Bombardier and Mimar also achieved the technical minimum score needed to compete at 2025 Worlds.
This partnership was formed earlier this year when Mimar, 23, split with Brooke McIntosh (who now skates with Spain’s Marco Zandron), while Bombardier, 19, was left partner-less when Gabriel Farand retired. Already, they’re showing some big promise for the future.
Canada also had two teams in the ice dance event. On the heels of a strong free dance, Montreal-based Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac placed fifth, while former national junior champions Nadiia Bashynska and Peter Beaumont of Toronto’s Ice Dance Elite wound up 12th in the field of 20.
Taking the Challenge
For many senior and junior skaters in this country, the point of entry for the Canadian championships comes next week in Winnipeg, when the annual Skate Canada Challenge is held at Seven Oaks Arena at Garden City Community Centre.
Competition runs from Nov. 28-Dec. 1. For senior skaters, competition will be held in the men’s, women’s and ice dance disciplines. Starting orders have yet to be posted, but expect to see some national teamers in the field, even though they’ve got a bye through to Canadians.
The full schedule for the event can be found here.