Pereira and Michaud win Pair Gold at French Grand Prix

Angers, France (November 4, 2023) – Lia Pereira of Milton, Ont., and Trennt Michaud of Brantford, Ont., stood on top of the podium in the pair competition at the Grand Prix de France on Saturday in Angers, France as they set a new personal best score to win gold just two weeks after capturing a silver at Skate America. Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Soerensen of Montreal, Que., also captured silver in ice dance.

Pereira and Michaud were sitting in first heading into the free skate, and despite a fall by Michaud on their side-by-side double axels, they retained their lead to finish with an overall score of 194.67.

“We’re super happy with this result,” said Michaud. “We came in knowing we were medal favourites, and we wanted to push ourselves as hard as we could to give ourselves the best shot we could, and to keep improving on our skates, and I think we did that.”

When asked what they did to prepare with only a two week break between events, Pereira added: “Rather than just focussing on the skating, we focussed a lot on each other and how we were feeling and the recovery, and mentally where we were at, and I think that really helped us this week. We really try to keep a positive mindset and to have a fun time at these events, and I think that week in between the two events was really helpful for us to have good conversations and good communication.”

Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii of Italy took the silver medal with an overall score of 189.46, while Camille and Pavel Kovalev of France took the bronze with an overall score of 172.88.

In the ice dance competition, 2023 Canadian ice dance champions Fournier Beaudry and Soerensen set season best scores in all of their performances to capture the silver medal with an overall score of 205.15. Marie-Jade Lauriault of Ste-Anne des Plaines, Que., and Romain Le Gac of Laval, Que., finished fifth overall with a total score of 182.61.

“We were really able to catch the moment, both in the short and the long here this week, and we’re just really happy with the performances, and with the French crowd – we always feel like we have the public with us here and supporting us,” said Soerensen, who together with Fournier Beaudry captured a bronze medal at the Finlandia Trophy earlier this season.

Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri of Italy won the gold medal with a total score of 214.54, while Evgeniia Lopareva and Geoffrey Brissaud of France took bronze with a total score of 190.82.

Stephen Gogolev of Toronto, Ont., who only learned he would be competing at this competition two weeks ago due a withdrawal by another skater, finished seventh in the men’s competition with an overall score of 228.74. The gold medal went to Adam Siao Him Fa of France with a total score of 206.78. Ilia Malinin of the USA captured silver (304.68), and Yuma Kagiyama took the bronze (273.14)

The next stop on the Grand Prix Circuit is the Cup of China which will take place in Chongqing, China from November 10^th to 12^th. For full results please click here.