by Matteo Morelli | Photos by Melanie Heaney

Japan hosted the 2025 ISU Grand Prix Final, welcoming the event back after last hosting it eight years ago. Nagoya delivered an incredibly well attended competition, with crowds that provided a fantastic support to every skater who took the ice.

Team USA won both the senior and junior titles in ice dance, with Madison Chock and Evan Bates earning their third consecutive gold medal, and Hana Maria Aboian and Daniil Veselukhin claiming their first Junior Grand Prix Final title.

SENIOR ICE DANCE RESULTS

Madison Chock and Evan Bates led both segments of the event, earning 88.74 points for their rhythm dance, 131.68 points for their free dance, and a combined total of 220.42 points.

They entered the competition with confidence, showing that, despite this Final being their third international event this season, both their programmes are evolving in view of the next Winter Olympic Games.

“I think this (victory) certainly gives us a lot of confidence that we are capable of accomplishing all of our goals”, Chock said. “We still have a lot of work to do that we want to accomplish before we feel ready for Milan, but this is definitely a step in the right direction, and we are really happy”.

They both expressed their satisfaction with the way they have come up with the new programmes for this season, which shows their commitment to creating new ideas.

“I think that the main thing is the inspiration to desire to be different, to want to do something we haven’t done before and just try to reinvent yourselves each season”, Chock shared.

“I think the other component that makes our creativity shine is the fact that we inspire each other, that we have been skating together for fifteen years, and we are still skating because we love skating with each other”, Bates added.

This was their ninth Grand Prix Final appearance, and across their participations they have earned four silver medals and three consecutive gold medals. This latest win makes them the team with the highest number of medals in ice dance at a Grand Prix Final.

“It actually makes me feel kind of emotional”, Chock admitted. “Skating has brought so much into our lives that we are so grateful for and has really enriched our experience as people and as athletes”.

“I really love this sport so much, and I love the evolution that you go through as an athlete and as a person, and I am so grateful for all the wonderful experiences that we have had”, she continued. “I am going to miss it a lot when we step away”.

Laurence Fournier-Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron won the silver medal, their first as a new team representing France.

Their rhythm dance on “Vogue” by Madonna earned 87.56 points and showed some changes from their last Grand Prix in Finland.

“We had a little bit of time only to try to improve on every aspect of the programme, we really focused on the technique and trying to improve the overall feeling and performance, so we are very happy with the progress that we have had in only one week”, Cizeron said.

Their free dance earned 126.69 points, for a combined total of 214.25 that secured their silver medal. Towards the end of the programme, Fournier-Beaudry’s skirt got stuck in her skate, causing her to fall.

“I cannot even really say what happened, I think we were both really into the programme and it is just a mistake that never happened before”, Fournier-Beaudry explained. “That just happened now and we are just going to build up from there, but we won’t let ourselves get affected by a small mistake like that”.

Both were not new to the Grand Prix Final, having qualified before with their previous partners, with Cizeron also winning medals.

“We are very happy to be here for our first Grand Prix Final together”, Fournier-Beaudry shared. “We teamed up not that long ago, so it is really a blessing to be here performing with some teams that have been skating together for many, many years, and that have achieved many, many great achievements”.

“I think that we are just going to continue to enjoy and build up the performances together and bring it to the second part of the season”, she continued.

“I think we are really proud to have made it so far, I think we have overcome so many challenges, and I am really proud of us for the performances that we have put out here”, Cizeron added.

Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson won a second consecutive bronze medal, after making history last year winning Great Britain’s first ever grand Prix Final medal.

“I think at this point in the season we are both just very proud of how we have competed so far, and to make it on the podium at our second Grand Prix Final in a row feels like a great achievement”, Gibson shared. “We are just really looking forward to getting back to work in our next competitions”.

They were fourth after the rhythm dance, earning 82.55 points. However, they ended up skating the third free dance of the day, earning 126.26 points and a combined total score of 208.81, which gave them an incredibly narrow margin of 0.06 points to climb up to third and win the bronze medal.

“I am very proud of both performances we did and excited to move ahead with confidence and a clear vision”, Fear said. “We will be looking at our videos here and getting all the feedback and seeing how we can optimize points and performance and our potential in the run up for the rest of the season”.

“We love every time we get to perform and we want to take that in”, she added. “We also make sure that we enjoy skating and that it is something that is energizing for us and gives us purpose”.

Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier were third after the rhythm dance with 82.89 points; however, their free dance ended up earning 125.86 points and an overall total of 208.75, which left them speechless on the kiss & cry after realising they dropped off the podium with such a small margin.

“I think we know we skated really well”, Gilles admitted. “I think a lot of things are out of our control at this event, we did all we could, the tech was great but everything else we can’t control”.

“We didn’t have a lot of time since our last Grand Prix and there wasn’t really time to change much and so it was really just a matter of believing in the training that we have put in this entire season so far and allowing that work to happen out on the ice”, Poirier shared.

Their Vincent reimagined showed how this free programme is quickly growing in intensity, proving the quality of the skating and performance of the Canadian team.

“We did make some changes to the free on our one-foot section, which we have been wanting to do for a while”, Gilles said. “It was nice to take that risk and do it, I think we just stayed true to our programme because we knew that the levels were there”.

“I think we are really pleased with the performance and every time we perform this programme, there is a deeper and deeper emotional layer that comes with it”, Poirier said. “I think we are really growing into this programme, we are really starting to enjoy performing it and we are really proud of that”.

Allison Reed and Saulius Ambrulevičius completed their first Grand Prix Final in fifth place, earning 79.48 points for their rhythm dance, 120.13 points for their free dance, and a combined total of 199.61 points.

“We are super proud and happy to be here”, Ambrulevičius said in relation to their first Final. “We worked hard and we worked our way here, it was a very nice reward and we just enjoyed every minute”.

“The only goal really was to just have an amazing time, this is a bonus for us, a reward for the hard work that we had put in the entire season, so for us it was kind of go out there, have a blast and enjoy what we do and leave it all out there”, Reed shared.

Their free dance to music by Faithless energized the arena, with the crowd clapping along and embracing the vibe.

“The crowd is phenomenal, it is just like it is the best time, the energy really rolls off of the crowd and so I am very grateful for that”, Reed explained.

It was also the first Grand Prix Final for Emilia Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik, which continue to be hopeful of having a chance to make the Olympics national team for the USA.

“I think we have put ourselves in a pretty good position”, Zingas said. “We still need to show a great performance at Nationals”.

Their rhythm dance earned 75.78 points, with a two-point deduction points for an illegal element.

“(We are) just a little confused, we competed already four times this year and we have never had deduction on this element, and it hasn’t been changed at all”, Zingas admitted.

Their free dance earned 117.83 points, for a combined total of 193.61 points

“We didn’t do as well as we would have hoped for”, Kolesnik admitted. “But it is experience, it is our first Grand Prix Final, so we are just super happy to be here, and it is all about learning, figuring it out and getting better”.

The senior medalists at the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final at the IG Arena in Nagoya, Japan

JUNIOR ICE DANCE RESULTS

Hana Maria Aboian and Daniil Veselukhin skated both their programmes with confidence, showing great quality and ice coverage, and won the junior title.

“Our number one goal these past two years as a partnership was to truly build and create stories”, Aboian shared. “After last season ended, we recuperated, we created new ideas and we worked extremely hard over the summer to develop our programmes and to make a larger step up”.

Their rhythm dance earned 66.77 points, a new personal best for them that, combined with the 98.68 points for their free, gave them a total of 165.45 and secured their gold medal.

“Of course, we are a bit stressed as it is our first Grand Prix Final, and that can cause nerves and stress, but as we step on the ice that goes away and we just enjoy and try to show you this”, Veselukhin said. “Coming here, our mentality was to give our best performances and that performances have to be memorable”.

Ambre Perrier Gianesini and Samuel Blanc Klaperman managed to move up from third after the rhythm dance, where they earned 62.35 points, to second in the free dance with 95.93 points, and second overall with 158.28 points.

They become the second French team to medal at the Junior Grand Prix Final, after Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron won a silver medal in 2012.

“To be close to the top senior teams, it is very impressive because usually we look at them on our small screen and now we can see them live, it is very motivating and inspiring”, Klaperman said.

“What really mattered was the performance”, Perrier Gianesini said. “We worked hard on performing clean programmes in all possible circumstances”.

“Of course, as athletes, we always aim for first place, but we knew that not finishing first wouldn’t ruin our careers, and there is still a very important event for us, the Junior World Championships, so this is a step towards it”, Klaperman admitted.

Iryna Pidgaina and Artem Koval improved on their fourth-place finish from last year’s Final, bringing Ukraine back to the Junior Grand Prix Final podium with a bronze medal after 26 years.

“We are really happy to be at our second Junior Grand Prix Final, it is really great to have an opportunity to be here again”, Pidgaina said. “I can say we are very proud to be Ukrainians and to have the honour to represent our country at this level, we want Ukraine to be remembered as a strong country with strong athletes and a strong spirit”.

They were second after the rhythm dance with 63.43 points, but ended up placing fourth in the free dance with 92.79 points, for a combined score of 156.22 that still allowed them to medal.

The other French team of Dania Mouaden and Théo Bigot earned a total score of 149.74 points, ending in fourth place despite both their programmes placing fifth in each segment. They earned 59.90 points for their rhythm dance and 89.84 points for their free dance, feeling really pleased to have experienced the Final.

“We didn’t have a goal, it was really just to do our best, to do the best we could and show what we do in training, it is our first final after all”, Mouaden said. “It was great, the audience really got behind us and we weren’t expecting that at all”.

Layla Veillon and Alexander Brandys of Canada ended in fifth place with 145.73 points, managing to recover from a sixth-place finish in the rhythm dance with 52.70 points, to skating to the third-best free dance with 93.03 points.

“We ran into each other in the first twizzle, which is obviously unfortunate, but it happens”, Veillon said in relation to their mistake in the rhythm dance.

“Further goals are to keep improving out programmes and keep pushing ourselves”, Brandys said.

Jasmine Robertson and Chase Rohner, the other American team in the Junior Final, finished in sixth place, going from fourth in the rhythm dance with 60.44 points, to sixth in the free dance with 79.85 points, for a total of 140.29 points.

“I wish we had done better, I think that there is definitely a lot more room for improvement”, Robertson said. “I am happy how we saved it in the outcome”.

“We will move on and try as hard as we can at our next competition”, Rohner added.

Athletes compete in the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final at the IG Arena in Nagoya, Japan