A peek inside three Canadian figure skating partnerships and what makes them click
“Chemistry is very important on the ice, but also just the way you work together because there is the connection.”
– Marjorie Lajoie
Creating the right pairing of athletes plays a huge part in what is possible to achieve in several winter Olympic sports.
But there is something incredibly unique about the pairs and ice dance partnerships found in figure skating.
These partnerships run much deeper than pairing two fast cross-country skiers for a team sprint or putting the strongest brakeman in the sled of the most capable bobsleigh pilot.
After all, they’re not just racing against a clock; they’re being judged for the elements they execute as well as the artistry and connection they display in their performance. Their body types have to work well together to earn the highest levels of difficulty. And if you look at the rule book, “oneness” and “unison” are right there in the criteria for the scoring of program components.
It takes time—often years—to develop the necessary chemistry and understanding of one another. If one partner is injured, the other half can’t just find someone else to compete with.
Essentially, there is no me, only a we.
Here’s what three of Canada’s top figure skating duos—each of which was created and developed differently—had to say about why their partnerships are perfect for them.
Marjorie Lajoie & Zachary Lagha: The Childhood Partnership
Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha formed their partnership in 2011, making them a similar model to Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, who had been skating together for 20 years by the time they became the most decorated figure skaters in Olympic history.
Now in their mid-20s, Lajoie and Lagha have risen through the ranks together as junior national champions and junior world champions before becoming Olympians and staking out their spot as Canada’s next stars on the international ice dance scene.
“The usual question that we’ve been asked is ‘how do you manage the stress together?’ and we always say ‘we manage our own stress because we trust that the other person will do whatever it takes to do good on the ice, so we don’t have to stress about the other person,” said Lajoie when asked about how their trust has developed over the last 15 years.
“[When] we started, we were 10 years old. We grew up together. So for sure the chemistry grows with it, with time and you learn so much about each other. And just because we were kids, teenagers, and then adults, we went through the whole life stage,” she added about the basis for their deep trust in each other.
Now as established senior skaters challenging for major international podiums, they easily define their identity as a team—one that can perform to almost anything, from the campiness of Austin Powers to a classical instrumental.
“[We’re] an aggressive team that just goes and doesn’t take their foot off the gas,” said Lagha. “Also, [we’re] a couple that can do different styles. I think it’s a very good quality and the quality that I feel like we’re losing more and more in this period of ice dance. A lot of people are going in their own style and then they kind of stay there, which is nice. But sometimes to try and challenge yourself to do different stuff is also interesting to do. And sometimes you have to take risks.”
What do they admire about each other?
“Marjorie, I admire her good mood,” said Lagha. “She’s all the time ready to work and it’s always light. And I can communicate what I want with her and she’s not going to take it personally, so it makes working with her much easier.”
“He’s always trying to evolve, get better,” said Lajoie. “He’s the one in the team that is doing the most overtime on the ice. He’s the hardest working person that I know.”
Deanna Stellato-Dudek & Maxime Deschamps: The Last Chance Partnership
When Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps forged their pairs partnership in 2019, it was close to the last chance for both. Stellato-Dudek was 36, past the age most figure skaters would have retired. But she was embarking on a new partnership after having ended a 16-year retirement three years earlier. She became Deschamps’ ninth partner after he had spent his career only getting a sniff of competing against the world’s best.
Sometimes, finding a partner with whom chemistry can be created means crossing borders. Born and raised in the United States, Stellato-Dudek decided to join Deschamps in Montreal. She became a Canadian citizen in December 2024, the key to them becoming eligible to compete at the Olympic Games.
“[Trust] is something that developed with time. Obviously, the more you skate together, the more you’re able to trust. You learn more from each other. This is how you’re able to go through hurdles together, through those things that you have to overcome,” said Deschamps. “Then you can really push forward your limits.”
“When I first met Max and he picked me up for our tryout, he had this thick French Québécois accent,” said Stellato-Dudek. “We had a difficult time communicating in the beginning. I would ask him three or four times to repeat something and just be like ‘I’m sorry, I don’t get it!’
“But now we know each other better and we know how to communicate,” she continued. “I’m super creative. Max has more of an engineer brain. So he figures out how to make my ideas come to life. We know what the other one needs. And this is something that we are still having to be disciplined and work on.
“But we are cognizant of that and we’re always trying to practice and be better at that. And I think that’s how we’ve been able to progress every year, even if the results have not been the same, we’ve always had progression every season.”
“It’s also evolution as a person,” added Deschamps. “What she needed three years ago is not what she needs now. So we’re evolving together and on the same path where we want to go, this is magical.”
What do they admire about each other?
“Her dedication, her discipline on a daily basis of everything she has to do,” said Deschamps. “She’s 42 years old, so what she has to do at that age to be able to skate and have that success and everything at that age is incredible… and this is something beyond what I was expecting from her.”
“I admire a lot of things about Maxime, so it’s kind of hard to pick just one,” said Stellato-Dudek. “Maxime is extremely intelligent. Like I said, he has very much an engineer brain and can figure out how to make these really cool ideas come to life. He also is very jovial and joking and positive, like, all of the time. And he can flip it, like on a dime. He can just flip himself and get into a positive mindset.”
Lia Pereira & Trennt Michaud: The Breakthrough Partnership
When Trennt Michaud was searching for a new pairs partner in the summer of 2022, he didn’t have to look very far—just across the rink.
He and his former partner, Evelyn Walsh, had been one spot shy of qualifying for Beijing 2022. After making their third world championship appearance together, Walsh decided she was ready to move on from competitive skating. Michaud, not so much.
“I was like, 100%, I’m not done. There’s so much more left on the table,” he recalled of a conversation with his coach Alison Purkiss. “Obviously I need to find a partner, so I was like, do you have anyone in mind and, it didn’t take too long, she said Lia.”
It was an interesting option, considering Lia Pereira hadn’t trained in pairs since 2018-19 when she was at the pre-novice level. By 2022, she was representing Canada at the junior world championships in women’s singles.
“I thought it was a good match height-wise. Obviously there’s certain things like that that you need,” said Michaud. “Skating-wise, obviously a very capable skater.”
After one week of skating just an hour together each day while Pereira still trained for singles, Michaud was convinced, telling Purkiss “I think this is it.” No cross country moves would be necessary.
Pereira felt similarly about their tryout period.
“I was like, oh wow, this is really fun, I really hope that we’ll get along because now that I’ve had a little taste of this, I want to do it,” she said. “And so the fact we got along and we kind of had similar goals and things, it was really easy.”
“We did have like an instant, we always get called the golden retrievers, connection. We both just have energy. We love what we do. Why wouldn’t you want to do this for as long as you can?” he added.
“It’s funny looking back at that because it was such a quick exchange,” said Pereira. “We joked for like the first two years that he had never even officially asked me to skate with him.”
“No, it was just, ‘see you tomorrow!’” Michaud chimed in.
“We both just really like skating, which when you get higher up in any sport, I think it’s a job for all of us. This is our work. And sometimes it can feel like that. But we really connected on the fact that we didn’t want it to feel that way and that it just naturally didn’t really feel that way,” continued Pereira.
Just eight months after their initial tryout they not only qualified for the 2023 ISU World Championships, they finished in sixth place. After having to first focus on training the elements, they’re now taking time to explore more their identity as a team.
“We’re really trying to figure out who Lia and Trennt are and what is our story and what do we want to tell and how do we want to portray our vision of who we are as skaters to other people. I think that we’ve learned now how to work as a team and what works for us and we’re just going to really use that to our advantage and just be able to produce the absolute best that we can.”
What do they admire about each other?
“Trennt is very dedicated. I don’t think I’ve ever really met someone who’s so dedicated to what they want to achieve. Skating is first in every aspect,” said Pereira. “It’s very easy to skate with someone who you can tell really cares about what they want.”
“I think Lia is very passionate and thoughtful,” said Michaud, directing his thoughts to his partner. “In all aspects of your life, whether it’s your family, whether it’s skating…. You can just tell that’s a genuine passion for something when it’s a thoughtful passion.”
