Skate Canada 2024 Recap

We look back at Skate Canada, a messy second installment of the Grand Prix series that still saw a few spectacular performances. Gilles and Poirier shined, Rino Matsuike surprised, and 3 world champions held their podium placements.

Week 2 of the 2024 Grand Prix is complete, and while there were some extraordinary performances there was also a lot of messy.

That said, Skate Canada did provide us our first Grand Prix 2024 appearance from Alysa Liu, locked in the first qualifier for the Grand Prix final (looking at you, Ilia Malinin), awarded its fifth straight ice dance championship to Piper Gilles & Paul Poirier, and delivered the first competition we’ve ever seen with a fire-eyed moose-head presiding over it from the ceiling.

Women’s Competition

Kaori Sakamoto may have taken gold here, but looked far from her usual self in the free skate. Her short program kept her out in front thanks to several of the other women who’d been higher ranked in the short program having problems in the free. The disappointment for them became the open door for Japan’s Rino Matsuike, who was 10th in the short and came back to win the free program and take silver with an extraordinary skate!

Coming in third was another Japanese woman, Hana Yoshida, who squeaked past Kimmy Repond by a very narrow margin to help enable a Japan sweep of the women’s podium. 

Ice Dance Competition

While it should come as no surprise that Piper Gilles & Paul Porrier took gold at Skate Canada for the 5th time, it should not go unsaid that these two programs looked like they just might be the strongest they’ve ever had. Bold words, we know, but their Beach Boys / Barbie and Ken rhythm dance is so “THEM” it’s astonishing. And their free dance, while not our favorite at this competition, is extremely compelling and technically impeccable. 

In second, Canada’s Marjorie Lajoie & Zachary Lagha had a fluke fall in their Austin Powers-themed rhythm dance, but came back with a STUNNING free dance that may be the best we see this season. Taking the bronze, Evgenia Loperava & Geoffrey Brissaud took on techno and — in our opinion — absolutely destroyed! Their free dance is unique and exciting, and will hopefully help this team continue to move up in the ranks.

Pairs Competition

Canadian superstars, Deanna Stellato-Dudek & Maxime Deschamps took their second Skate Canada title in a row, with a mixed competition for them. Their short program was stellar, showing a new vibe for them and giving the crowd a delight. Their free skate was not as strong, though.But it’s a great program and, with it being early in their season, we expect they’ll keep getting better and better.

In the silver and bronze spots were the relatively unknown team of Ekaterina Geynish & Dmitrii Chigirev of Uzbekistan, and Australia’s Anastasia Golubeva & Hektor Giotopoulous Moore — the later who brought home Australia’s first-ever Grand Prix medal.

Men’s Competition

Ilia Malinin, fresh off of his Skate America win, came to Canada and showed the slow, steady improvement to his programs we expected to see. He’s taking the approach of peaking later in the season this year, and so far it looks to be paying off with slightly watered-down technical that still has him winning by 40 points.

In the silver spot was Japan’s Shun Sato, who looks to be making progress in his expression on the ice, but had enough issues in the free skate to hold him back from putting any pressure on Malinin. In third, Juhnwan Cha continued his strong early season with two solid and lyrical performances. His long program may be one of the best of the season from anyone, and it’s exciting to see him regaining some consistency. 

Chapters

0:00 — Intro 1:26 — Women’s Competition 1:33 — Kaori Sakamoto 4:26 — Rino Matsuike 7:37 — Hana Yosh