Canada’s Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud display their gold medals in front of the Canadian flag after winning the pairs title at Skate Canada International in Kelowna, B.C. (All photos by Danielle Earl/Skate Canada).

KELOWNA, B.C. — Three years ago, Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud were still introducing themselves to the pair skating world when they landed on top of the podium at a Grand Prix event in France.

It can be safely said that nobody truly saw that one coming in just their second season together as a pair team. But the gold they earned this weekend at Skate Canada International … not a thing surprising about this one. The reigning World bronze medallists came to Kelowna this week as big favourites to win this event, and they delivered in every way from start to finish.

“We’ve grown so much since then,” Pereira noted when asked to compare their victory in France in 2023 to the triumph they recorded at Prospera Place.

Indeed, they have. Pereira and Michaud will head to Finland for their second Grand Prix assignment later in November and should be favoured to continue their golden run this season to date (they also have a victory at Nebelhorn Trophy, a Challenger Series event, on their growing resume this season).

There is also no place like home, as the old sod goes, and laying down another strong performance — this one being their “Dawn of Faith” long program — in front of the home folks put a special glint in their eyes.

“It feels so amazing with both performances to have all of the Canadian fans on their feet and see all of the Canadian flags waving in the audience,” the 22-year-old Pereira said afterward. “You just feel so at home and so comfortable, and to be able to put out two very strong performances this early in the season and to be backed by such strong Canadian fans … you can’t really ask for more.”

There was a bit of a “living the dream” aspect to this one for the 30-year-old Michaud, who can remember watching this event as an aspiring young skater and thinking that winning SCI would be the coolest thing. Now he and Pereira, who train at the Milton and Brantford skating clubs under the direction of coach Alison Purkiss, are making such things happen for real.

“I’ve said it before. I remember watching this as a kid and volunteering as a young skater and imagining what it would be like to be on the podium or to be on the top of the podium here and hear your national anthem at a home Grand Prix,” he said. “We got to experience that today and I hope we inspired other young skaters or just young athletes in general to keep pushing for their dreams.”

With a 202.17 overall total, Pereira and Michaud won the competition by a comfortable 10.27 points. Americans Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov claimed the silver and Switzerland’s Oxana Vouillamoz and Tom Bouvart took the bronze.

It’s also the fourth straight year that Canada has taken the pairs gold at SCI, with Pereira and Michaud’s victory coming after Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps won the previous three titles.

The new champions say they couldn’t have been happier with the way things transpired over the past two days.

“We’re no strangers to the Grand Prix, and so I think with every new competition and experience, we just want to use what we’ve learned from the past and grow on it,” said Pereira. “We’ve really, in the past season, found what works for us at home in terms of training and preparation with our team, and so we’ve really taken that from last season and implemented that this season.

“And I think it’s just proof from our performances this week that we are on the right track, and we are continuing to build not only confidence in our elements but just fluidity throughout our performances. And we’re very pleased with the results.”

They’ll surely be riding a wave of momentum to Finland, and a second gold there would secure a trip to the Grand Prix Final in early December in Chongqing, China. They’ve only been to that event once previously, back in 2023 — the same season in which they produced that first series gold in France.

“Just to continue off the momentum we’ve built so far,” Pereira said about the plan going forward. “Every competition we learn and we grow as performers and as athletes, so we just want to continue that growth and that momentum for the rest of the season and continue to perform. We just want to continue to do what we love.”

Canada’s Ava Kemp and Yohnatan Elizarov had a disappointing free skate at Skate Canada International, and it dropped them from medal contention to fifth place in the final standings.

Entering the night, Canada had hopes of putting two teams on the pair podium for the first time at SCI since 2016, when Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford won their third of four straight gold medals and Lubov Ilyushechkina and Dylan Moscovitch took the bronze (the same thing had also happened a year earlier, when Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro were the bronze medal winners).

Ava Kemp and Yohnatan Elizarov were in position to take home a medal in their Grand Prix debut after placing third in the short program. But their “Never Tear It Apart” free program unravelled quickly after errors on two straight sets of side-by-side jumps. They wound up sixth in the free skate and fifth overall (163.07).

The looks on their faces when the music ended pretty much told the story.

“Ava and I were clearly upset, but I don’t think that reflects our training,” said the 22-year-old Elizarov. “In the short, we do exactly what we do in practice and it works and then I feel like this is the second or third time where we feel like we’re doing exactly what we do in practice but then it doesn’t work out.

“So we’re a bit confused and frustrated as to why we can’t skate a clean (long) program even if it just feels the same way it feels on practice.”

There was definitely a “here we go again” feeling when the first few mistakes happened. The proverbial snowball had started rolling downhill at them, and Kemp and Elizarov just couldn’t figure out how to stop it.

“As soon as one thing goes wrong, I think we start to overthink everything and really try to make sure we’re perfect on everything else, which ultimately doesn’t help,” said the 18-year-old Kemp. “So yeah, definitely, I think we need to go back and just take this as a really big learning lesson.”

Kemp and Elizarov didn’t arrive in Kelowna with any visions of medals in their heads, and finishing third after the short didn’t change that mindset.

“I don’t think that was our goal today. I’m not extremely disappointed that we’re not walking away with a medal,” said Kemp. “I don’t that was our goal, even coming into the free program. We were able to come to practice this morning and not really think about it at all.”

The duo plan to have conversations with their sports psychologist before Skate America, their second Grand Prix assignment, which is just two weeks away.

“I don’t know what we’re missing, so we’ll have to figure that out,” said Elizarov.

Canada’s third pairs entry here, Miyu Yunoki and Tristan Taylor, moved up one spot after the Grand Prix debut to finish seventh overall.

Canada’s Stephen Gogolev moved up eight spots after the short program to finish fourth overall in the men’s event at Skate Canada International in Kelowna.

We spent some time asking Stephen Gogolev, after his bounce-back free skate at Skate Canada International, what he’d be taking home from his weekend experience at this event in Kelowna. Hardly realizing that some hardware might possibly find its way into his luggage for the trip home to Toronto.

And yet, here we were, with one skater left in the field and the Canadian found himself sitting in the bronze medal position. This after he’d finished at the bottom of the standings after a short program riddled with errors. But yet again, the 21-year-old displayed the power of his talent, even if there’s still some rust yet to shed.

As it turned out, Japan’s Rio Nakata did enough to claim the silver medal behind France’s Kevin Aymoz, with Mikhail Selevko of Estonia seizing the bronze. That Gogolev managed to finish fourth, a rise of eight spots after the short program, was quite the story in itself (he placed third in the free skate). It’s his highest finish ever in four appearances at SCI, but it took some doing to get there.

It’s very clear, still, that Gogolev needs a lot more mileage on his “Moulin Rouge” free program. But you can see that the choreography is all there and it’s impressive. He opened with a clean quad Lutz — the jump he missed at the beginning of his short program (he was the first Canadian man ever to land one at 13, you might recall) — but his triple Salchows were just a shade off in the landing. The triple Axels looked as good as always. Again, though, it’s about the mileage.

Point being that the 165.99 score (and 232.72 total) should be seen as merely a beginning, and we’re betting we’ll see that number rise sharply throughout the season — starting with his second Grand Prix date later in November in Finland.

But back to that original question … what will he take home from SCI, on a weekend when he clearly wasn’t 100 per cent but seems to be creeping in that direction?

“The main takeaway is definitely having confidence in myself and trusting the training that I’ve been putting in,” he said. “Also, I’ve had quite a bit of limited training coming into this competition, considering the (right foot) injury that I had … I was only able to put in two weeks before this competition, so I think (it’s about) trusting myself and just putting in more repetition and training as much as I can.”

The rust, the lack of mileage — whatever term you want to use — surely showed in his short program, in which he missed two key jumping elements. Gogolev credited that support system that surrounds him with lifting his spirits and helping to get him in the right frame of mind to turn in Saturday’s redemptive skate.

“The support that I’ve gotten over the past 24 hours after the short program has been really great,” he said. “I’ve got some good messages from a lot of people that I admire … a few people that are really close friends and just skaters.

“I was happy to give out a good fight today.”

Skate Canada marked Gogolev’s first true competition since the 2026 World Championships in Prague, which were held way back in March. That’s more than seven months without feeling the buzz of competition and yeah, that kind of thing surely can make a difference. That no doubt played into the rough start in the short program, but it was easy to see an improvement in that area in the free.

“It’s been quite a long time gaining (back) that feeling of competition and really focusing on myself,” he said. “And also, something again that I’ve learned from this competition is trusting myself during the short program delivery role, and something that Benoit (Richaud, his coach and choreographer) really helped me with over the past 24 hours after the short program.”

Now that this one is out of the way, it’s back to the Granite Club in Toronto for more work with Lee Barkell, the other half of his coaching team, and Richaud. Time to fine-tune the programs a little more and more of that valuable training before Finland.

“I’m so happy that my body can handle it, obviously, and I can keep putting in the reps (before the next Grand Prix),” he said.

Turns out Gogolev wasn’t the only Canadian man coming into this event with limited training time due to an injury. Wesley Chiu, the 2024 Canadian champion, revealed that he’d been dealing with a right foot injury, which kept him out of summer competitions, but he was cleared to skate in Kelowna. But like Gogolev, he’s also very much lacking in those training reps.

“I just lacked a little bit of training or mileage in the program, if you will,” he said. “So it was a bit of a late start for me, and I felt it today for sure, especially at the end. But it was a good step forward.”

Canada’s Wesley Chiu arrived at Skate Canada International with less than an optimal level of training after battling a right foot injury through the summer months.

The rust was obvious in the number of jumps he missed or wasn’t exactly clean on.

“Today was definitely a fight for sure. I think it took a little more grit to keep it together for the long program,” he said. “But I’m definitely happy with the effort that I put in. I think I could give it a bit more, but (given) where we are at this point in the season, I’m proud of the steps that we made.”

The plan now is to move into some serious recovery mode, and Chiu suggested he might not compete again until Skate Canada Challenge in Winnipeg at the end of November. He’s also planning to head home to Vancouver and spend some time working with three-time World champion Patrick Chan, who is part of his coaching team along with Brian Orser and Tracy Wilson at the Cricket Club in Toronto.

“My focus was really to train up to Skate Canada, and despite all the struggles, I handled it pretty well,” he said. “Now it’s time to really focus on recovery.”

Chiu wound up 10th overall with a 200.94 total, one spot behind Canadian teammate David Bondar, the Grand Prix newcomer, who posted 214.61 overall. The 19-year-old recovered well after messing up his opening quad toe jump, and can head home to Toronto knowing he showed improvement during his time in Kelowna.

“The mistake at the beginning was a bit wild. I’m not used to making those types of mistakes, but I’m really glad about the way I refocused and got the rest of the program done,” he said. “Not just technically wise, but also the spins, the footwork. I feel like the speed in the program is a big step up from what I did in the past.”

Bondar puts bringing a higher level of consistency to his quads at the top of his goal list for the rest of the season. And he considers what he went through in his first Grand Prix as a big assist for the future.

“I’m going to take (home) a lot of experience,” he said. “It’s a big deal to be on this huge stage, on the Grand Prix stage, and I’ll just take this experience and continue training hard, getting ready for nationals and other events as well.”

We’re back to a two-event day to close out the proceedings in Kelowna. Here’s the schedule for Sunday at Prospera Place (all times Pacific):