Wendy and Adron discuss the results of Skate Canada, the second event in the 2023-24 Grand Prix of Figure Skating season. Explosive performances from Pairs team Deanna Stellato-Dudeck & Maxime Deschamps and Women’s reigning world champion Kaori Sakamoto headline our experience. But some surprise meltdowns and sketchy judging muddy our perception of an otherwise terrific event.

PAIRS

The marquee moment of Skate Canada 2023 has to be the free program from Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps that scored a phenomenal 142.39. This vampire-themed program could not look better on them, and seeing how conditioned they look this early in the season solidifies them as not just World podium favorites, but in the running for the World title! 

WOMEN

Queen Kaori Sakamoto came to Canada on a mission and absolutely completed it. Unlike the shaky start she had last season, Kaori skated two gorgeous programs at Skate Canada. A resounding victory was well earned amongst a very strong field, which saw particularly impressive showings from South Korea’s Chae-yeon Kim, Rino Matsuike of Japan, Maddie Schizas from Canada, and Lindsay Thorngren of the United States.

DANCE

We saw the season debut of Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier — who solidified their status as co-favorites for the World Title this season with two sumptuous programs. They faced the fan-favorite disco Brits, Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson, who brought their ever-evolving “Rocky” to Vancouver and came up big for silver.

There was also a “competition within a competition” between three American teams — Oona Brown & Gage Brown, Emilia Zingas & Vadym Kolesnik, and Eva Pate & Logan Bye. The Browns siblings took this round by a smidge, but we won't see them again till US Nationals...

MENS

Japan’s Sota Yamamoto secured victory with a fantastic short program and solid free skate. His countryman, Kao Miura, nearly stole the top of the podium with his powerful long program.

Things get messy after that, with the disastrous free skate from Korean superstar JunHwan Cha, a surprise bronze for Italy's Matteo Rizzo, and dubious under-scoring that kept Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan off the podium.

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