By Matteo Morelli | Photo by Aoran Liu

The Chongqing Huaxi Culture and Sports Centre in Chongqing hosted the second Grand Prix event of this season, Cup of China 2025. This was the fifth consecutive edition held in Chongqing, with many fans attending the event and showing their support for all the skaters competing there.

Two American teams took the top spots on the podium: Madison Chock and Evan Bates won the event in their season debut, followed by Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik, who earned their first Grand Prix medal. The bronze medal went to France’s Evgeniia Lopareva and Geoffrey Brissaud.

Event Recap

Madison Chock and Evan Bates led both segments of the event and won their first competition of the season, where they debuted their new programmes: their rhythm dance is set to a medley of music by Lenny Kravitz, and their free is on a flamenco built on the music of “Paint it black”.

The three-time world champions started their season by focussing on skating both programmes cleanly, knowing that they will grow throughout the season.

“There is always a little bit of stress and pressure”, Chock shared. “We had some moments we had to work through, but we are happy with how we performed and debuted our program.”

Chock designed costumes for both programmes, including her free dance costume with a skirt that she uses to add to their storytelling. For their flamenco, they worked with Spanish dancer Antonio Najarro to fine-tune all the details of the programme: Chock plays the role of a matador, using her movements and red skirt to interact with the bull, portrayed by Bates. They explained that they want to show the relationship between matador and bull, how they challenge each other but eventually find mutual respect.

Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik had a fantastic experience in Chongqing: at their fifth Grand Prix competition, they earned a silver medal after placing second in both segments of the event and achieving new personal bests, a meaningful accomplishment in such an important season for them. 

Their rhythm dance to “Poison” and Something in your eyes” and free dance on Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet” showcased the amount of work this team has put in to demonstrate their potential. Kolesnik was particularly happy and surprised at the same time, and Zingas shared that she felt they showed they were skating for each other and for themselves.

The third American team didn’t have the Grand Prix they were hoping for: Caroline Green and Michael Parsons withdrew from the event after finishing seventh in the rhythm dance, likely due to Parsons’ fall during their twizzles.

Evgeniia Lopareva and Geoffrey Brissaud won bronze, managing to hold on to the third place despite earning the fourth-best score in the free dance. Their programmes present two contrasting styles: their rhythm dance showed their entertaining side with Eiffel 65’s “Blue” and tunes from Daft Punk, while their free dance shows a more intense style set to music by Björk.

The other French team, Loïcia Demougeot and Théo Le Mercier, finished, after an issue with their spin caused them to drop two places from their rhythm dance placement.

Spain’s Olivia Smart and Tim Dieck had a fall on the pattern dance-type step sequence during their rhythm dance to music by Robbie Williams and George Michael, however they came back very strong in their free dance to “Dune: Part Two”, which earned the third-best free dance score of the day and allowed them to move up from sixth to fourth place overall.

South Korea’s Hannah Lim and Ye Quan performed their rhythm dance to music from the movie “Men in Black” and their free dance to “Adagio for Strings” by Samuel Barber, finishing fifth in both segments and overall. This was initially meant to be their only Grand Prix assignment, but they recently found out that they have also been assigned to compete at Skate Canada, giving them a second, back-to-back Grand Prix event.

The three Chinese teams closed the standings in seventh, eighth, and ninth place respectively: Shiyue Wang and Xinyu Liu; Junfei Ren and Jianing Xing; and Zixi Xiao and Linghao He.

Qualification standings

With two of six Grand Prix completed, the qualification standings for the Grand Prix Final are, in order:

15 points: Laurence Fournier-Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron (France), Madison Chock and Evan Bates (USA)
13 points: Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson (Great Britain), Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik (USA)
11 points: Allison Reed and Saulius Ambrulevičius (Lithuania), Evgeniia Lopareva and Geoffrey Brissaud (France)

Next Grand Prix

Skate Canada International will be the third Grand Prix of the season. World medallists Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier will debut their new programmes on home soil; also from Canada, first Grand Prix of the season for Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha, and second for Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac, after a sixth-place finish at Grand Prix de France. Also competing for a second Grand Prix will be Lithuania’s Allison Reed and Saulius Ambrulevičius, fresh of their bronze medal from France; Emily Bratti and Ian Sommerville, eight in France; and South Korea’s Hannah Lim and Ye Quan, recently announced to replace Finland’s Juulia Turkkila and Matthias Versluis, which had to pull out due to Versluis still recovering from an injury. Completing the list of attendees are Czech Republic’s Kateřina Mrázková and Daniel Mrázek; Germany’s Jennifer Janse van Rensburg and Benjamin Steffan; and from the USA, Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko, and Leah Neset and Artem Markelov.

Skate Canada International takes place from October 31st to November 2nd.