Lajoie & Lagha earn ice dance silver at Skate America
Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha took home silver in the ice dance on Sunday, capping off a solid weekend for Team Canada at the 2025 Skate America competition, the penultimate event on the ISU Grand Prix series. The day before, Kelly Ann Laurin and Loucas Éthier had skated to the bronze medal in the pairs event.
Coming off of a bronze at Skate Canada International at the end of October, Lajoie and Lagha reached the podium once again thanks to season best performances in both the rhythm dance and free dance.
Their total score of 197.16 put them behind only Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates. The three-time reigning world champions won the gold medal with a score of 212.58 points. The Canadians finished 4.55 points ahead of bronze medallists Evgeniia Lopareva and Geoffrey Brissaud of France.
“We are really proud and happy with our performance and our result. Finishing second here means a lot to us because we worked very hard between the Skate Canada and Skate America competitions. I think we did a very good job,” said Lajoie.
“We couldn’t have done better. Under the circumstances, it was perfect!” added her partner Lagha.
Meanwhile in pairs on Saturday, Laurin and Éthier earned a career best free skate score of 121.58, ranking them second in that portion of the competition, to climb from sixth place after the short program to the third step of the podium.
Their personal best total of 182.27 points beat out Americans Emily Chan and Spencer Akira Howe by 2.85 points for the bronze medal. Japan’s Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara, two-time world champions, took home gold ahead of Georgia’s Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava.
Laurin and Ethier finished in fifth place at Skate Canada International two weeks ago. This is their first Grand Prix medal since they won bronze at Skate America in the fall of 2022.
“It’s important for us because we had a roller-coaster kind of start to the season, and to be able to bounce back with our best performance on the international stage feels great!” said Éthier.
The ISU Grand Prix series concludes next week with Finlandia Trophy in Helsinki. Among the skaters looking to lock up their spots at the ISU Grand Prix Final are Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier. Lajoie and Lagha are currently ranked fourth in the Grand Prix standings, with only six ice dance teams able to qualify.
