HALIFAX — The Canadian pairs team of Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps will join fellow world champions Ilia Malinin and Kaori Sakamoto to headline a strong field at Skate Canada International this week.
The second Grand Prix stop of the year goes Friday through Sunday at Scotiabank Centre as the pre-Olympic figure skating season kicks into high gear for Canada’s top medal hopes.
Here’s a look at five things to know heading into the event:
BACK AGAIN
After skating to silver at the world championships in Montreal, ice dancers Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier are back for another season.
The decorated duo has made a habit of opening its season at Skate Canada — and winning. The two 32-year-olds have topped the podium in four straight years of the competition (the 2020 event was cancelled). This weekend, they’ll aim for a fifth victory to kick-start a season they hope culminates in their first world championship title in Boston next March.
Gilles and Poirier’s biggest rivals, two-time defending world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States, will not be competing at Skate Canada. Instead, their stiffest competition may come from fellow Canadians Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha, who won two Grand Prix silver medals and placed fifth at worlds last season.
Lajoie and Lagha withdrew from the Budapest Trophy Challenger event two weeks ago due to an undisclosed injury but are expected to compete in Halifax.
DEFENDING GOLD
Also looking to repeat at Skate Canada International are Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps.
The duo with a story that could be a Hollywood script triumphed for Canada’s first world title since 2018 in Montreal. The 41-year-old Stellato-Dudek, a former U.S. singles skater, left the sport for 15 years and returned in 2016 as a pairs athlete. In 2019, she teamed up with the 32-year-old Deschamps after he’d gone through numerous partnerships over the years.
Stellato-Dudek is still seeking Canadian citizenship to compete at the 2026 Olympics in Milano-Cortina. The Chicago native couldn’t share specifics about a “new development” with her nationality last week but said “things are moving in the right direction.”
The world champions opened their season by claiming silver at the Nebelhorn Trophy Challenger event in September. In Halifax, their biggest challengers will be Annika Hocke and Robert Kunkel of Germany, who rank sixth in the world.
BEST OF THE BEST
Men’s champion Malinin of the U.S. — the self-proclaimed “Quad God” — and three-time reigning women’s champion Sakamoto of Japan are also gracing the ice surface this weekend.
Malinin is back in Canada after scoring a world-record 227.79 points with a jaw-dropping six-quad performance during his free program in Montreal. The 19-year-old phenom won Skate America last Sunday and is the early favourite to claim gold at the 2026 Olympics.
And this year, he’s doing backflips. While skaters used to be penalized for the move, backflips and other somersault-type jumps are no longer banned by the International Skating Union. Malinin landed one en route to victory at Skate America.
Sakamoto is aiming for a fourth straight world title this season. Carol Heiss of the U.S. was the last woman to achieve the feat, winning five consecutive titles from 1956-1960.
SINGLES HOPES?
Canadians aren’t likely to challenge Malinin or Sakamoto. Canada hasn’t won a singles medal at the world championships since Kaetlyn Osmond captured women’s gold in 2018, and the last men’s medallist was Patrick Chan in 2013.
Without a top-10 result in Montreal last March, the Canadian men and women will only have one spot each at worlds this season.
Madeline Schizas, who finished 18th at worlds, and 17-year-old Canadian champion Kaiya Ruiter are Canada’s top women’s entries in Halifax. For the men, 2022 Olympian Roman Sadovsky is set to take the ice along with youngsters Aleksa Rakic and Stephen Gogolev.
ABOUT THE GRAND PRIX
The Grand Prix, the top series in figure skating, consists of six events and a final. This year’s circuit kicked off at Skate America last week and includes competitions in Halifax, France, Japan, Finland and China. The top six skaters in each discipline advance to the Grand Prix final in France in early December.
Skate Canada begins Friday night with the pairs and women’s short programs. The rhythm dance and men’s short take place Saturday afternoon, followed by the pairs and women’s free programs in the evening. The competition wraps up Sunday afternoon with the men’s free program and the free dance.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2024.
Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press
