When a bronze medal feels like gold
For many skaters, few things feel better than the first time you stand on the podium at an international event. Canada's Sara-Maude Dupuis now knows why it's such 'a big thing.'
This is the weekend when a pair of Canadian tandems — indeed, the country’s most accomplished skaters on the international stage — should lock up berths in the Grand Prix Final, an exclusive event which includes only six entries per discipline. Outside of the World Championships, it’s a competition the planet’s best skaters hope to include on their schedule.
Certainly, it is a reason to celebrate when a skater achieves that kind of lofty goal. But there are also other things that give competitors cause to cheer, especially when they are still very early in their own personal journey.
Sara-Maude Dupuis is one of those people.
Much will be said and written this weekend about her fellow Canadians, World pairs champions Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps, along with Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier — the reigning World silver medalists in ice dance — each of whom is favoured to land on the top of the podium at the Grand Prix of Finlandia. That kind of result will qualify both teams for the Grand Prix Final in early December in the Olympic city of Grenoble, France.
All of that is plenty exciting. So, too, at least in Dupuis’ world, is the bronze medal she earned at Tallinn Trophy, a Challenger Series event in Estonia. It was the first-ever international medal for the 19-year-old from Montreal and, well, this video does the best job of all in showing what it meant to her.
“A senior international medal is something I’ve really wanted for a long time and didn’t think it was possible at times, but I knew this week I could do it and I’m happy I did,” Dupuis said per Skate Canada. “It’s something I cherish, and I’m super happy with the result.”
We gained a little more perspective on this when we caught up with Mike Slipchuk earlier this week.
“When you really look at the big picture, with the number of athletes that have been out internationally for Canada over the years, not a lot have ever won a medal,” explained Slipchuk, Skate Canada’s high performance director. “Your top people tend to win medals often, but a large percentage win maybe one or two medals in their career internationally.
“It is a big thing. (Winning a medal) builds confidence; it shows the work and the direction you’re moving is paying off and you just have to keep going. It’s nice for athletes to get a reward every so often because it’s a hard sport. These Challenger events in the middle of the Grand Prixs tend to not have as many of the top skaters, so it’s a good opportunity (to compete for a medal). And it’s nice to see that some of our athletes, when the opportunity is presented, this year they’ve taken it, which is great.”
The past few seasons, Dupuis has skated in the shadow of the more accomplished Maddie Schizas and Kaiya Ruiter, who between them have won the last three Canadian senior women’s titles. But Dupuis has big dreams of her own that were further fuelled when the 2024 World Championships came to Montreal in March. She made sure she soaked up as much of the action as possible at the Bell Centre.
“I went three days out of four, it was such a special experience. You see the best (in the world),” she said, adding she was accompanied by some of the younger skaters she trains alongside at Centre Elite Patinage Artistique in Boucherville, on Montreal’s South Shore, where she is coached by Stephane Yvars. “I go to those big competitions. I went to Four Continents, I’ve been to Grand Prixs, but a lot of skaters I train with don’t go usually, and I got to go with them. It was so special to see Worlds through their eyes. They were so amazed and had such a fun time.”
Needless to say, Dupuis called the entire experience “very motivating” heading into a new season, for which she detailed the following goals:
“Improve my personal best, kind of move toward the 180-point total score. And for nationals, I would like to place top three. That’s my goal. I’ve never medalled at nationals and I would really love for that to happen and that would qualify me to Four Continents, which is the ultimate goal.”
Four Continents, usually held near the beginning of February, has been an especially good time for Dupuis — her two career best scores in the free skate have come at that event over the past two years. Her current personal best overall score (172.45) was achieved earlier this year at Four Continents. It’s part of a trend Slipchuk has noticed with Dupuis in recent years.
“In the past few years, we found that she tended to start the season slow and kind of hit her best scores usually in the springtime. So Four Continents tends to be one of her best events all the time,” he said. “With many athletes, we have that discussion that we want them to try to start at a higher level at the beginning of the season and keep building up. And I feel like she’s done that this year. She’s not come back like previous seasons where she started out kind of low score-wise and had to build back up. She’s kind of started in the mix where she ended last season, and that’s where it puts you in the game.”
And it’s how she found herself on the podium in Estonia. Dupuis placed second in the short program, then did enough in the long to grab the bronze medal position by a mere 0.17 points over Finland’s Lennea Ceder. Her long program score has improved in each of three events so far this season, hitting 108.54 in Tallinn. She established a personal best short program score of 62.20 in September at Nebelhorn Trophy in Oberstdorf, Germany, where she placed ninth (that score helped Dupuis surpass the technical qualifying score needed for 2025 Worlds in Boston).
Dupuis is especially fond of her short program, which she is using for a second straight season. It is skated to “Never Go Back” by Evanescence, a gothic alternative metal band from Little Rock, Arkansas.
“It’s a bit of gothy, rock kind of music, which I love. It was my choreographer, David Wilson, who suggested it and after I listened to it a few times, I fell in love with it and the character,” Dupuis said at Skate Canada International in Halifax, where she placed 10th. “I’m not really a gothy person at all, but it’s a character I get to put on and be really emotional in it, which I love.”
The program is also one that plays to Dupuis’ technical strengths.
“We discussed in the spring (with her team) about her short program, and putting in the elements that are her strengths. They have done that by putting in triple toe-triple toe, and she’s had great success with it,” said Slipchuk. “That’s made a difference because when she puts that program out clean, it’s in the 60s. If she makes a mistake in a program, she still has a lot to hold her up there, which we’ve seen at a few of the events. They’ve adopted some of the feedback and strategy which has been sent their way to consider.”
(her new long program, also crafted by Wilson, is skated to a selection of music by Armand Amar and The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra from the “Human” soundtrack).
At the Canadian championships, Dupuis been hovering around the senior podium for the past two years. In 2023 in Oshawa, Ontario, she placed fourth in both the short and free programs, and that’s where she wound up in the overall standings. Earlier this year in Calgary, she stood third after the short but faltered in the free, placing sixth in the final standings (but less than five points off the podium).
She is especially enthused about the chance to target a medal at 2025 nationals, which are being held close to home in Laval, Quebec.
“It’s literally 10 minutes from my house, which is so special, and I’m going to have family there — I’m really excited for that,” she said. “I love that rink, I’ve been there many times. We had Worlds (in Montreal) last year; I didn’t participate, but it was so fun to have it near my home. For nationals, it’s going to be even nicer.”
The return of Roman
When last we saw Roman Sadovsky, he was forced to withdraw from Skate Canada International because of a back injury that had been nagging him all week in Halifax. But the 25-year-old from Toronto was back in competition this week at Tallinn Trophy, and brought home a bronze medal for his efforts.
It required an uphill climb after the short program, after which Sadovsky stood ninth. But he produced the third-best free skate in Tallinn and that launched him upward by six spots and into a podium position by less than a point.
“It was an up and down week for him, and it’s one of those events that, given what his abilities are and what he can do, he could have won,” said Slipchuk. “It was nice (for him) to get the podium and hopefully, with the feedback he was given, he’ll continue to build toward nationals.”
Canada has two entries in the ice dance competition in Tallinn, which runs Saturday and Sunday: Montreal-based Alicia Fabbri and Paul Ayer, who are competing for the fourth time in a busy fall season, and Lily Hensen and Nathan Lickers, who train at the Ice Academy of Montreal’s satellite school near London, Ontario.
On Saturday, Fabbri and Ayer earned a personal best score of 75.05 for their Elvis Presley-themed rhythm dance and has them in fourth place. just 0.10 points out of a podium sport. Hensen and Lickers stand 10th in the field of 14 at 65.85.
About that Grand Prix …
The Grand Prix Series is nearing the finish line, with the fifth of six stops being held this weekend in Helsinki, Finland. And, as mentioned earlier, it could be a particularly big weekend for four of Canada’s top skaters.
World pairs champions Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps, who already have a gold medal in their pockets from Skate Canada International, are halfway toward earning another after winning the short program on Friday with a season’s best score of 75.89. That has the Montreal-based duo comfortably in front of the field by more than eight points heading into Sunday’s free skate.
Meanwhile, Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier are tracking a second Grand Prix gold medal in ice dance this weekend, but will face stiffer competition to get there. The Canadian champions emerged victorious in today’s rhythm dance with an 84.65 score (a touch lower than than the 86.44 they earned three weeks ago at SCI), but their margin over Britain’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson — currently ranked No. 4 in the world — is a mere 2.62 points. They’ll decide the title during Sunday’s free dance.
Can’t wait for Nationals in January! We won’t have to drive more than an hour!
The bench is getting deeper for Canadian women. Deeper than it’s been for years.