ANKARA, TURKEY (Aug. 30, 2025) – Three Canadian teams took to the podium this weekend at the ISU Junior Grand Prix in Ankara, Turkey, two in pairs and one in ice dancing.

Gold medalists last weekend in Riga, Latvia, Ava Kemp (Winnipeg, Manitoba) and Yohnatan Elizarov (Winnipeg, Manitoba) continued their momentum on Friday in Ankara, once again climbing on top of the podium.

Also in pairs, Julia Quattrocchi (Laval, Quebec) and Étienne Lacasse (Sainte-Thérèse, Quebec) took home the bronze medal in their very first Junior Grand Prix together.

Kemp and Elizarov were second behind China’s Rui Guo and Yiwen Zhang after the short program despite a personal best, trailing the leaders by less than a point. The Canadians left no doubt about their victory in the free skate, earning 115.49 points to bring their total to 179.43, two more personal bests for the pair.

“We are obviously very happy!” shared Elizarov. “We worked hard to get to this level, and even though it’s mentally difficult to compete two weekends in a row, we were able to overcome the stress to win a second gold medal.”

“We had the same mindset as last week,” added Kemp. “We knew what we had to do to repeat our accomplishment. We really like our programs, and I think we’re learning a lot by doing them.”

Quattrocchi and Lacasse also had a similar weekend, moving up one spot in the free skate to secure their place on the podium with a total score of 146.67 points.

“We didn’t really have the ambition to win a medal in our first Grand Prix together,” explained Julia Quattrocchi. “We wanted to introduce our new partnership and show the quality of our skating, so we are extremely proud of this third place.”

Meanwhile, Brianna Dion (Ottawa, Ontario) and Jacob Côté (Halifax, Nova Scotia) finished ninth in the pairs competition with 124.77 points in their very first international competition together.

Also making their Grand Prix debut, ice dancers Charlie Anderson (London, Ontario) and Cayden Dawson (Oakville, Ontario) skated consistently throughout both programs to finish second overall with a total of 149.79 points.

“We are very proud of each other,” said Anderson. “It’s pretty incredible what we’ve been able to accomplish over the last year. We didn’t necessarily have high expectations, but we wanted to show what we were capable of.”

Ukraine’s Iryna Pidgaina and Artem Koval (155.14) were the only pair to finish ahead of the Canadians. Lea Hienne and Louis Varescon of France rounded out the podium with 143.02 points.

Just behind the French couple, Auréa Cinçon-Debout (Montreal, Quebec) and Earl Jesse Celestino (Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Quebec) achieved their best result of their young Junior Grand Prix careers with a fourth-place finish (141.61 points), improving on their three personal bests.

“Everything went well and we are very proud of our performance,” said Celestino. “We trained very hard in the last few weeks and we felt confident when we were on the ice.”

Full competition results can be found here.