BATUMI, GEORGIA (Sept. 26, 2026) – The ISU Junior Grand Prix series picked back up this week in Batumi, Georgia, with six Canadian skaters competing across the men’s, women’s and ice dance events. Among them was junior men’s national bronze medallist James Cha (Toronto, Ont.), who made his Junior Grand Prix debut.

Cha placed 11th overall, receiving personal best scores of 60.01 points in the short program and 118.68 points in the free program. He totalled 178.69 points overall, also a personal best.

“It went fairly well, I’d say,” Cha said, reflecting on the competition. “I think I was just expecting to do my best, land my jumps, and I basically did it.”

Swiss skater Ean Weiler captured the gold medal with 221.72 total points. Japan’s Hayato Okazaki finished not far behind, securing the silver medal with 217.27 points, and was joined by teammate Sena Takahashi who won bronze with 214.87 points.

In junior women’s singles, Victoria Barakhtina (Toronto, Ont.) placed 10th overall in her second appearance in the series this season. Barakhtina followed a 54.19-point short program with a personal-best 114.20-point free program to finish with 168.39 points overall, her best total of the season and just shy of her personal best.

“I’m really happy with my performance and with my score,” she said after her free program. “I did everything I could, I guess.”

China’s Yihan Wang won gold with 201.82 points. Israel’s Sophia Shifrin took silver with 196.29 points, and France’s Stefania Gladki won bronze with 189.92 points.

In ice dance, Summer Homick (Tillsonburg, Ont.) and Nicholas Buelow (Barrie, Ont.) made their return to the series after picking up the bronze medal in Xi’an, China, earlier this season.

Homick and Buelow placed fifth overall, setting a new personal best total score with 144.33 points overall. Their total included a season-best 57.12 points in the rhythm dance, followed by 87.21 points in the free dance.

“We really controlled what we could do and I think we showed ourselves really well,” Buelow said after the competition. “We knew coming into this it would be a really tough event. There are a lot of really good teams here, and I think we’ve really learned from that and we’re really going to go back to training and go back to work and try and catch up to them.”

Competing in their second international competition as a team after making their debut in Ankara, Türkiye last week, Audra Gans (Prévost, Que.) and Danil Pak (Almaty, KAZ) placed sixth overall. They received personal best scores across the board, earning 56.09 points in the rhythm dance and 84.07 points in the free dance to total 140.16 points overall.

“We wanted to go out and just do a good clean run and try to perform our best, and I think that’s what we did,” said Gans.

“We’re really proud of each other,” Pak added. “We did a really good job.”

France’s Ambre Perrier Gianesini and Samuel Blanc Klaperman led the category with 160.97 points. Darya Grimm and Grigorii Rodin (GER) won the silver medal with 156.55 points, and Xinyu Chen and Gordei Chitipakhovian (USA) won bronze with 153.65 points.

The ISU Junior Grand Prix will resume Oct. 1-3, in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

For the complete results, click here.