Canadian Junior Skaters Impress at 2024 World Junior Figure Skating Championships

TAIPEI CITY, TAIWAN (March 2, 2024) – Canada’s next generation of figure skating talent closed out the 2024 ISU World Junior Figure Skating Championships in Taipei City, Taiwan on Saturday with several top-10 performances, and many new personal best scores in the ice dance and men’s competitions.

Chloe Nguyen of Vancouver, B.C., and Brendan Giang of Burnaby, B.C., had the top result of the day finishing sixth overall with a new personal best total score of 151.09 in the ice dance competition – a solid improvement from their 14^th-place finish at last year’s competition.

“We’re very happy with both of our performances at this event. We put in a lot of work and it paid off,” said Giang following their free dance which also scored a new personal best for the team of 89.87.

Layla Veillon and Alexander Brandys of London, Ont., weren’t far behind Nguyen and Giang, finishing eighth overall with a new personal best total score of 147.40. Alisa Korneva and Kieran MacDonald of Waterloo, Ont., finished the competition in 17^th with a total score of 130.18.

Leah Neset and Artem Markelov of the USA won gold (169.76), while Elizabeth Tkachenko and Alexei Kiliakov of Israel captured silver (162.68), and Darya Grimm and Michaii Savitskiy of Germany took bronze (162.13).

The men’s competition closed out the event and saw Aleksa Rakic of Burnaby, B.C., finishing as the top Canadian in eighth place with a new personal best total score of 211.74, despite some small challenges with his free skate.

“The short was amazing with a new personal best and I’m really proud of that and making the final group,” said Rakic who skated a brilliant short program to set a new personal best on Thursday. “The long, I have mixed feelings. I gave my all, which you can’t be that upset with, but losing the levels on the spins at the end was costly, and that’s disappointing because I don’t usually make that mistake.”

Anthony Paradis of Boisbriand, Que., set new international best scores in both of his programs to finish with a score of 130.42 that saw him finish 15^th overall.

Minkyu Seo of Korea won the junior men’s world championship title with a total score of 230.75. Rio Nakata of Japan came back from a disappointing short program to win the free skate and take silver overall (229.31), while Adam Hagara of Slovakia took bronze (225.61).

For full results please click here.