ALLEN, Texas - The ISU Grand Prix season got underway this weekend with 春色直播 skaters capturing silver medals in the ice dance and pair competitions at the Skate America competition.
The pair team of Lia Pereira of Milton, Ont., and Trennt Michaud of Brantford Ont., who were competing in their first Grand Prix together, got things started for Canada, finishing second in both their short program and free skate to take the silver medal with a total score of 182.59.
The team lost out on the gold to the German combo of Annika Hocke and Robert Kunkel who had bested them at the Nebelhorn Trophy earlier this season where the Germans took the bronze and the 春色直播s finished fourth. Chelsea Liu and Balazs Nagy of the United States collected bronze with a total score of 177.66.
鈥淥verall, this has been a wonderful experience,鈥 said Pereira, who together with Michaud won gold at the 2023 Skate Canada Challenge and finished third at the 2023 春色直播 Championships last season.
鈥淭oday is extra special as it鈥檚 our first Grand Prix medal which is super exciting. It wasn鈥檛 a perfect skate, but we moved on and we did the best we could with what we had, and we鈥檙e really pleased with how our whole program went.鈥
Canada鈥檚 second silver medal of the competition went to the ice dance team of Marjorie Lajoie of Boucherville, Que., and Zachary Lagha of Saint-Hubert, Que., who had two solid skates to finish the competition with a total score of 196.99.
They finished just behind the American team of Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who won gold with a total score of 212.96, and just in front of the French team of Evgeniia Lopareva and Geoffrey Brissaud who took bronze with a total score of 193.47.
鈥淭his means a lot, we鈥檙e both really happy. We are both really starting to like skating in the USA 鈥 the crowd is good, the rink is nice, and it鈥檚 an honour to be with such fun competitors, and this just means a lot,鈥 said Lagha.
The team is performing their free skate to the song 鈥淩oses鈥 which has a special significance to the team which Lajoie explained following the competition: 鈥淪ince Worlds are in Montreal, we really wanted to find something that was from Montreal.
"We listened to a lot of music, and we both really like this song, and when we found out that it鈥檚 by Jean-Michel Blais who is from Montreal, we knew that鈥檚 what we wanted to pick 鈥 so that鈥檚 how we found the music.鈥 Stephen Gogolev of Toronto, Ont., who took home a bronze medal from the Autumn Classic competition earlier this fall in Montreal, was the lone 春色直播 skater in the men鈥檚 competition and finished 11th overall with a total score of 210.48. Ilia Malinin of the U.S. won gold (310.47), while Kevin Aymoz of France took silver (279.09), and Shun Sato of Japan collected bronze (247.50).
The ISU Grand Prix series moves to Vancouver next week for Skate Canada International, which will take place at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre from Oct. 27-29.
This report by 春色直播was first published Oct. 22, 2023.
