Grenoble, France (December 7, 2024) – The ISU Grand Prix Final wrapped up Saturday in Grenoble, France and saw the Canadian junior pair of Jazmine Desrochers and Kieran Thrasher capture the bronze medal for the second year in a row while Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier bounced back from a difficult showing on Friday to post the second-highest score of the day in the senior ice dance competition to finish fifth overall, just behind Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha in fourth.

It was a difficult skate for Desrochers of Mississauga, Ont., and Thrasher of Amherstburg, Ont., with falls on both of their throws amidst some other challenges, but their final score of 152.82 was enough to secure them the bronze medal behind Jiaxuan Zhang and Yihang Huang of China who won gold (176.09), and Olivia Flores and Luke Wang of the USA who took silver (155.82).

“We thought our performance was decent, but that’s the best word to describe it,” said Thrasher following the competition. “I think we showed some good elements, and there were other elements that had mistakes unfortunately, but overall I think we showed a good performance to everyone.”

Making their Grand Prix final debut, Julia Quattrocchi of Laval, Que., and Simon Desmarais of Carignan, Que., skated a beautiful, clean program to finish the competition ranked sixth in the world with a new personal best total score of 139.13.

The senior ice dance competition wrapped up the weekend for Canada and saw Lajoie of Boucherville, Que., and Lagha of Saint-Hubert, Que., finish as the top Canadians, just off the podium in fourth with a total score of 199.84.

“We don’t control results, we control how we skate, and we skated both programs very well and the results came, so it’s a cherry on top – we’re happy for sure,” said Lajoie of their accomplishment.

Gilles of Toronto and Poirier of Unionville, Ont., were the first to skate after sitting in sixth following their rhythm dance and skated a flawless program to “A Whiter Shade of Pale” to post the second-highest score of the day, moving them up to finish fifth overall with a total score of 199.27.

“Today was challenging just because we had an error yesterday in the rhythm dance. It’s always hard after a mistake to come into the next program the next day and not doubt yourself, so being able to come out here and do a strong performance is a testament to our training and we’re really proud of what we accomplished today,” said Poirier.

Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the USA repeated as gold medallists for the second year in a row with a total score of 219.85. Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri of Italy took silver (206.11), while Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson of Great Britain took bronze (205.18).

This wraps up the Grand Prix season for 2024. Next up on the competition calendar are the Canadian National Skating Championships taking place from January 14-19 at Place Bell in Laval, Quebec.

For full results please click here.