MILAN (Italy) February 15, 2026 — Sunday marked the start of pairs skating at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games.

Lia Pereira (Milton, Ont.) and Trennt Michaud (Trenton, Ont.) were first to skate for Team Canada. They put out a stellar routine, rocketing to the top of the standings with a personal best score of 74.60. They sit in third place headed into the free program on Monday.

“After being pretty content with the short program in the team event, we still came out wanting more,” Pereira said. “We’re very motivated people and we always want to put out our best. Today we did that, so it’s a really nice kind of full-circle moment to do that at the Olympics.”

The pair previously skated this routine during the team event earlier on in competition, something Michaud believes has played a part in their success at these Games.

“It’s huge to have been able to do the team event because it feels like we’ve already fully competed, which we have, and not that long ago,” Michaud said. “We did a really good job this week of planning with our coaches of our down days and what we were managing throughout the week and we were just really excited to get out there to perform that today.”

Deanna Stellato-Dudek’s Olympic dream took flight today as she and partner Maxime Deschamps took to the ice for the first time in this competition. The pair missed out on the team event earlier on as Stellato-Dudek recovered from an injury sustained in practice in the week leading up to the Games.

It was history in the making for the athlete, 42, as she became the oldest female figure skater to compete at the Olympics in nearly a century, and doubly so, as she did it wearing a custom creation by designer Oscar de la Renta—a first-of-its-kind collaboration for the brand.

“To me, this has been a long time coming,” said Stellato-Dudek. “I’m just lucky enough that I found the right partner to be able to get me to these Olympic Games. But I always hope that in the future, somebody breaks my record and somebody wins Worlds above 40 and somebody qualifies for the Olympics above 42.”

Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps currently sit 14th overall after a costly fall towards the end of their program. They scored 66.04 points, some 10 points back from their personal best. Despite this not being the result they hoped for, the pair still qualified for the free program and will have a shot at improving their standing.

“We were really enjoying being out there, that’s the most important,” said Deschamps. “I was proud of Deanna. We did great until that mistake, which was extremely costly, but overall we’re just proud of being able to skate and represent our country.”

Leading the standings, Germany’s Minerva Hase and Nikita Volodin (80.01) currently sit in first place, with Georgia’s Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava (75.46) trailing behind in second.

Pereira and Michaud and Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps will hit the ice once more starting at 2:00 p.m. ET on Monday for the free program and a medal could be well within reach for Pereira and Michaud.

For full results, click here.