by Maria Bagdasarova

The third event of the 2024/2025 ISU Grand Prix series, Grand Prix de France, was held in Angers on November 1-3, 2024.

France’s Evgeniia Lopareva & Geoffrey Brissaud clinched their first ISU Grand Prix title in front of the ecstatic home crowd, overtaking two-time and reigning European Champions Charlene Guignard & Marco Fabbri from Italy. USA’s Emily Bratti & Ian Somerville claimed the bronze medal, their first ISU Grand Prix medal.

The ice dance event saw a lot of unexpected movement in the standings between the Rhythm Dance and Free Dance.

Rhythm Dance

Coming in their first Grand Prix event this season, Charlene Guignard & Marco Fabbri took a commanding lead in the Rhythm Dance with a strong performance to “Land of 1000 Dances”, “For Once in My Life”, and “You Make Me Feel Mighty Real”. Their routine highlighted their signature fluidity, exceptional synchronization, and close skating. They scored 82.20 points.

“We worked on a lot of details [since the last competition],” Fabbri said. “We didn’t change big things compared to the first competition we had this season, we just worked on details. We will surely work on other ones for the next events, and maybe change something, but we’re pretty happy with today’s performance. At the first two competitions of the season [ISU CS Lombardia Trophy 2024 and Shanghai Trophy], when we stepped on the ice we didn’t feel that we could control the entire program while today was probably the first time where everything was under control, even if there were some things that could have been better,”

Evgeniia Lopareva & Geoffrey Brissaud’s routine to a Boney M medley was very energetic and technically solid, earning them a season’s best score of 77.75 points. Along with Emily Bratti and Ian Somerville, Lopareva and Brissaud were one of two teams competing in back-to-back events, having participated in Skate Canada the previous week.

“We had a 20 hour flight, we slept and we tried to recover,“ Brissaud commented. We did back-to-back competitions before. We are young, so we can do this.”

“We didn’t have time to really work on anything [since Skate Canada], but I feel we warmed ourselves up in Halifax, so in France we are in a flow of a competition and it was easier to skate, we felt more grounded. So the technical score and the levels were a bit higher,” Lopareva added, pointing out the improvement from a level 2 to a level 3 on the partial pattern step.

Lithuania’s Allison Reed & Saulius Ambrulevicius delivered a crowd-pleasing performance to “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy” by Rod Stewart. The 2024 European bronze medalists attained the 74.49 total segment score.

The duo competed at an ISU Challenger Series event in Nice less than two weeks prior to the Grand Prix de France and will be competing at the NHK Trophy the next weekend.

“We didn’t have much time,” Ambrulevicius commented. We are testing our program and seeing what works and what doesn’t. It will be the same for the next week. We’ll take it to the future events and try to improve after that, when we have more time. But for now we are just putting the mileage in the program and trying to enjoy and to find the control that comes with the time.”

Compared to their performance at Skate Canada, USA’s Emily Bratti & Ian Somerville achieved higher levels on their midline step sequence and twizzles. Their uplifting and technically precise performance to “Brick House” and “Daddy Cool” earned them 72.81 points and a fourth-place finish in Rhythm Dance.

Not very far behind them with a season’s best score of 72.54 points were Canadians Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac with a playful and theatrical routine to “Rich Man’s Frug”. Staying true to their signature style, they captivated the audience with expressive choreography.

Close behind them were two teams who are World Junior Champions from the past two years. The 2024 World Junior Champions, Leah Neset & Artem Markelov from the USA, placed sixth with 71.86 points for their charming dance to an ABBA medley, featuring intricate transitions. The 2023 champions, sibling duo Katerina Mrazkova & Daniel Mrazek from the Czech Republic, scored 71.54 points with their Beatles medley. They didn’t achieve the highest levels on their elements, so this score has significant potential for improvement with a cleaner performance.

USA’s Eva Pate and Logan Bye delivered an entertaining performance to “Le Freak by Chic”, “Car Wash,” and “Shake Your Groove Thing”, earning a score of 71.47 points.

Following them were the French team of Natacha Lagouge & Arnaud Caffa, who performed another ABBA medley and scored 65.89 points. They managed to overtake their teammates Marie Dupayage & Thomas Nabais, who encountered costly mistakes on their twizzles and steps while debuting the new version of the first part of their rhythm dance. The duo had changed the first piece of music to “Love Is All” by Roger Glover, Ronnie James Dio after the Denis Ten Memorial where they competed at the beginning of October.

Free Dance

Evgeniia Lopareva & Geoffrey Brissaud captivated the audience with a confident performance of the innovative choreography by Guillaume Cizeron, showcasing a futuristic techno dance set to “Elephant,” “Fugue in D Minor,” and “360” by BFRND. While the last minute of their routine was not as crisp as at Skate Canada the week before, particularly their unique choreo slide move, this could be attributed to fatigue from competing in back-to-back events. Despite receiving significantly fewer GEO points for that element, they still managed to deliver a season-best score of 117.52 points, bringing their total score to 195.27 points.

This was enough to secure their first Grand Prix title, fifth Grand Prix medal and a third consecutive podium at the Grand Prix de France.

“It’s incredible to win our first Grand Prix in France in front of our families and friends,” Brissaud said.

Together with their third place at Skate America, the French team qualified for the Grand Prix Final for the first time in their career. It will take place in Grenoble on 5-8 December, 2024.

“Honestly, it was a little bit of a surprise for us today to achieve this,” Lopareva shared. “We were trying this season to fight for our place in the final. We weren’t sure if it could be possible or not, we kept the possibility. So now, we probably will go and of course, it’s going to be something special because it’s in France again and it’s going to be our first final. I’m just feeling shocked actually right now.”

Charlene Guignard & Marco Fabbri performed a routine that depicted two robots, showcasing innovative movements, but appeared tentative and slow, making uncharacteristic errors – one on a lift, and then Marco fell during the circular sequence. As a result, they earned only 106.88 points, placing them fifth in the Free Dance. They were able to maintain second overall (189.08 points) largely due to the margin earned from their successful rhythm dance.

“I think it was the worst performance of our 15-year career so far,” Fabbri confessed. “We struggled from the first combo lift, and then nothing worked tonight. We fought for every element, and I fell during the circular step sequence. I don’t know what to say.”

Emily Bratti & Ian Somerville gave an emotional performance to “Ne Me Quitte Pas”, marking a strong comeback from their disappointing free dance the week prior. This effort secured them their first Grand Prix medal. With a score of 113.07 points, they finished second in the Free Dance, contributing to a total of 185.88 points. Just a week after finishing ninth at Skate Canada, Bratti and Somerville were overjoyed to achieve this milestone.

“It’s really unbelievable,” Somerville said. “We definitely weren’t expecting this result, but we’re extremely thrilled and it’s unbelievable to be up here with these amazing skaters that we’ve looked up to for a long time.”

“Last week was just a disaster and very disappointing,” Bratti added. “It’s like night and day how we feel now versus last week. I’m just really proud of how we’re able to come back from that.”

Allison Reed & Saulius Ambrulevicius dropped from third to fourth place, finishing with a total of 185.24 points. Meanwhile, Katerina Mrazkova & Daniel Mrazek from the Czech Republic made a notable rise, advancing two positions to secure fifth place with 183.05 points, thanks to their strong performance in the Free Dance segment, where they finished third.

Leah Neset & Artem Markelov maintained a consistent good level of energy throughout their free dance, earning them sixth place with a score of 176.60 points.

Meanwhile, Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac fell from fifth to seventh place with their Western-themed free dance, leaving points on the ice due to several mishaps during their twizzles and steps.

Eva Pate and Logan Bye debuted their new free dance set to Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, showcasing impressive musicality despite a significant error on their combination lift. Natacha Lagouge & Arnaud Caffa moved up to eighth place with a crowd-pleasing performance. Finally, Marie Dupayage & Thomas Nabais rounded out the rankings after a mixed performance short of their usual high standard, but still managing to showcase their elegance and artistry.

Along with Allison Reed/Saulius Ambrulevicius, Marie Dupayage/Thomas Nabais will compete again next week at the NHK Trophy in Tokyo, Japan.