NEW YORK, USA (Sept. 3, 2025) – Deanna Stellato-Dudek (Chicago, USA) and Maxime Deschamps (Vaudreuil-Dorion, Quebec) dominated both programs at the John Nicks Pairs Challenge International in New York, winning the gold medal to kick off their season on the international stage.

World champions in 2024, the pair first earned a score of 70.77 on Tuesday in the short program, during which Stellato-Dudek stole the show with a successful assisted backflip. This element greatly impressed the judges and spectators at the Sky Rink at Chelsea Pier.

“We were really happy with our short program,” said Deschamps. “We executed all our elements very well, and I think we were able to offer a strong program overall. Everything is also going well in training, so that’s a good sign.”

Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps continued their momentum on Wednesday in the free skate, this time receiving 128.66 points from the judges, bringing their total to 199.43 and securing their place at the top of the podium.

“We were at Skate Canada’s High Performance Camp last week and chose this event because of the quick turnaround, since we will often have events two weeks in a row this season,” shared Stellato-Dudek. “We know what we need to work on in the coming days to continue our progress.”

“We did very well this week” added Deschamps. “I think everything went smoothly. It’s the beginning of the season, so it’s normal to still have small mistakes, but we know we’re going to improve quickly.”

Joining the Canadians on the podium were American pairs Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov (193.54), in second place, and Katie McBeath and Daniil Parkman (187.89), in third place.

Full competition results can be found here.