ANGERS, FRANCE (Oct. 19, 2025) – Deanna Stellato-Dudek (Chicago, USA) and Maxime Deschamps (Vaudreuil-Dorion, QC) wasted no time to make their mark this season, claiming the silver medal in pairs at the first stop of the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Series in Angers, France.

The 2024 World Champions took second place in the short program with 74.26 points thanks to a routine that included a perfectly executed assisted back flip by Stellato-Dudek. They continued their momentum the next day in the free skate, scoring 123.40 points to secure second place with a final score of 197.66, despite a significant error that disrupted the Canadians’ concentration.

“I touched Maxime’s foot during a maneuver, which had an impact on several of the elements that followed. That had never happened to us before, even in training, never. It was difficult to adapt after that, but I think we did a good job overall to limit the damage and make the most of it,” said Stellato-Dudek.

“It was difficult to skate after our technical error, and we need to work on that to know how to react when something major like that happens. Yes, we still got a medal, but I prefer to focus on how we skate rather than our ranking,” Deschamps added.

Japan’s Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara were unbeatable over the weekend, climbing to the top of the podium with a total of 219.15 points. Hungary’s Maria Pavlova and Alexei Sviatchenko (192.76) rounded out the top three.

Ice dancers Marie-Jade Lauriault (Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, QC) and Romain Le Gac (Laval, QC), improved on their seventh-place finish at last year’s Grand Prix de France, this time placing sixth overall with a score of 186.49.

Double medalists in the ISU Challenger Series since the start of the season, the duo earned 73.75 points in the rhythm dance before scoring 112.74 in the free dance, placing sixth in each.

“We did very well in the short program, but we may not have attacked as much as we would have liked afterwards. We already know what elements we can work on to improve quickly. I know it will be exciting to get back to training to push ourselves even harder. We want to try to be 1% better every day,” explained Lauriault.

Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron of France won gold with 211.02 points, ahead of Britain’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson (210.24) and Lithuania’s Allison Reed and Saulius Ambrulevicius (201.05).

Full competition results are here.