{"id":33747,"date":"2023-12-04T10:49:04","date_gmt":"2023-12-04T15:49:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/?p=33747"},"modified":"2026-04-06T15:21:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T19:21:39","slug":"preview-2023-grand-prix-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/preview-2023-grand-prix-final\/","title":{"rendered":"Preview: 2023 Grand Prix Final"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"p1\"><em>by Matteo Morelli <\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">China is going to host the 2023\/2024 Grand Prix Final, to take place at the National Indoor Stadium in Beijing. The six junior and six senior ice dance teams that ranked top after all the Grand Prix events are going to battle to earn one of the important medals awarded at this event. Let\u2019s have a look at who is going to compete in Beijing, and how they enter the event after the Grand Prix Series.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong>Qualified teams &#8211; Senior<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">This year\u2019s Final has some interesting stats in the senior\u2019s field:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\n<li class=\"li1\">Five of the six teams that qualified and competed at the Grand Prix Final last year are going to compete again at this year\u2019s Final (new to this event are Lajoie &amp; Lagha);<\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\">All reigning world medallists (Chock &amp; Bates, Guignard &amp; Fabbri, Gilles &amp; Poirier) and Grand Prix Final medallists are qualified again at this year\u2019s Final: they are incredibly experienced teams, with each having skated together for at least thirteen years;<\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\">Chock\/Bates have the highest number of attendances to a Grand Prix Final, with this being their seventh; they also have the highest number of Grand Prix Final medals, with four silvers collected so far;<\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\">Eight of the twelve athletes at this event are at least thirty years of age: those in their twenties are Fear &amp; Gibson and Lajoie &amp; Lagha;<\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\">Four teams train at the Ice Academy of Montreal;<\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\">Canada has very high chances of winning a medal, with half of the teams at this event representing the maple leaf flag (it is worth reminding that this season\u2019s World Championships will be held in Montreal, Canada).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"p1\">Let\u2019s have a look at each team individually.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em>Piper Gilles &amp; Paul Poirier, Canada &#8211; 30 points<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Gilles &amp; Poirier won gold at both Skate Canada and Cup of China, and they recorded the highest scores of the Grand Prix Series this season. The winner of last year\u2019s Grand Prix Final will try to replicate the same result and lead this year\u2019s Final. Their free dance to music from \u201cEmily Bront\u00eb&#8217;s Wuthering Heights\u201d takes them to a different style compared to what they are used to show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em>Madison Chock &amp; Evan Bates, USA &#8211; 30 points<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Chock &amp; Bates won Skate America and Grand Prix of Espoo, thus also entering this event with 30 points as Gilles &amp; Poirier. Unlike the shaky debut they suffered last season, they started this season with strong and convincing programmes. Their free dance looks at the theme of time, skated on music by Pink Floyd. After a silver medal won at last year\u2019s Final, the reigning World Champions will aim to improve their result this year and win that Grand Prix Final gold medal they are still missing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em>Charlene Guignard &amp; Marco Fabbri, Italy &#8211; 28 points<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Guignard &amp; Fabbri won gold at Grand Prix de France and silver at NHK Trophy. They will try to earn another Grand Prix Final medal, after winning a bronze at last year\u2019s Final in their home country. This year, they started the season in top form, with strong programmes including their free dance on music from \u201cThe theory of everything\u201d, which they shared is more aligned to their personal style.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em>Lilah Fear &amp; Lewis Gibson, Great Britain \u2013 28 points<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">After winning a silver medal at Skate Canada, Fear &amp; Gibson won their first Grand Prix gold medal at NHK Trophy, making history for their country as the first Grand Prix winners for Great Britain. They enter the second Grand Prix Final of their career, hoping to improve from their fourth-place finish from last year. Their free dance is based on music by the iconic movie \u201cRocky\u201d, that they perform on the ice with full characterization.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em>Laurence Fournier Beaudry &amp; Nikolaj S\u00f8rensen, Canada &#8211; 26 points<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Fournier Beaudry &amp; S\u00f8rensen won silver medals at Grand Prix de France and Grand Prix of Espoo. This is going to be their second Grand Prix Final, where they will try to shine with their \u201cTop gun\u201d rhythm dance and \u201cNotre Dame de Paris\u201d free dance, programmes that keep growing throughout the season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em>Marjorie Lajoie &amp; Zachary Lagha, Canada &#8211; 26 points<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Lajoie &amp; Lagha won silver at Skate America and Cup of China. They are entering the first Grand Prix Final of their career, where they will skate to their Michael Jackson\u2019s \u201cThriller\u201d rhythm dance and their free dance that is infused with lightness and emotional intensity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong>Qualified Teams \u2013 Junior<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Following a total of seven Junior Grand Prix events, these are the top six teams that qualified for the Junior Grand Prix Final:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\n<li class=\"li1\">Leah Neset &amp; Artem Markelov, USA \u2013 30 points: they won the events in Thailand and Japan, allowing them to qualify for their first Junior Grand Prix Final;<\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\">Darya Grimm &amp; Michail Savitskiy, Germany \u2013 30 points: with wins at the events in Poland and Austria, they enter their second Final after having competed at last year\u2019s one in Turin, Italy, where they ended in fifth place;<\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\">Elizabeth Tkachenko &amp; Alexei Kiliakov, Israel \u2013 28 points: they won the event in Armenia, and earned silver and the one in Japan, qualifying for their first Final;<\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\">Mariia Pinchuk &amp; Mykyta Pogorielov, Ukraine \u2013 28 points: with a win in Turkey and a silver medal from Poland, they also qualified for their first Final;<\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\">Yahli Pedersen &amp; Jeffrey Chen, USA \u2013 26 points: at their first year together as a team, they earned silver medals from the events in Turkey and Hungary;<\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\">Celina Fradji &amp; Jean-Hans Fourneaux, France \u2013 24 points: with a silver from Thailand and bronze from Japan, they access their second Final, after having competed at the one in Turin last year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong>Event info:\u00a0<\/strong>Teams have official practices from Wednesday, December 6. The rhythm dance kicks off on Friday, December 8, with the junior starting from 3:30pm (CST) and the senior from 9:00pm (CST); the free dance occurs on Saturday, December 9, starting with the junior competition from 1:00pm (CST) and the senior competition at 5:50pm (CST).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Matteo Morelli China is going to host the 2023\/2024 Grand Prix Final, to take place at the National Indoor Stadium in Beijing. The six junior and six senior ice [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33748,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"1280","_gspb_post_css":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[142,297],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-preview-archive"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2023-Grand-Prix-Final.jpg?fit=957%2C566&ssl=1","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2023-Grand-Prix-Final.jpg?fit=957%2C566&ssl=1",957,566,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2023-Grand-Prix-Final.jpg?fit=254%2C150&ssl=1",254,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2023-Grand-Prix-Final.jpg?fit=300%2C177&ssl=1",300,177,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2023-Grand-Prix-Final.jpg?fit=768%2C454&ssl=1",768,454,true],"large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2023-Grand-Prix-Final.jpg?fit=957%2C566&ssl=1",957,566,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2023-Grand-Prix-Final.jpg?fit=957%2C566&ssl=1",957,566,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2023-Grand-Prix-Final.jpg?fit=957%2C566&ssl=1",957,566,true],"et-pb-post-main-image":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2023-Grand-Prix-Final.jpg?resize=400%2C250&ssl=1",400,250,true],"et-pb-post-main-image-fullwidth":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2023-Grand-Prix-Final.jpg?resize=957%2C566&ssl=1",957,566,true],"et-pb-portfolio-image":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2023-Grand-Prix-Final.jpg?resize=400%2C284&ssl=1",400,284,true],"et-pb-portfolio-module-image":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2023-Grand-Prix-Final.jpg?resize=510%2C382&ssl=1",510,382,true],"et-pb-portfolio-image-single":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2023-Grand-Prix-Final.jpg?fit=957%2C566&ssl=1",957,566,true],"et-pb-gallery-module-image-portrait":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2023-Grand-Prix-Final.jpg?resize=400%2C516&ssl=1",400,516,true],"rpwe-thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2023-Grand-Prix-Final.jpg?resize=45%2C45&ssl=1",45,45,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Team IDC","author_link":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/author\/idcadmin\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"by Matteo Morelli China is going to host the 2023\/2024 Grand Prix Final, to take place at the National Indoor Stadium in Beijing. The six junior and six senior ice [&hellip;]","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7GOSM-8Mj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33747"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33750,"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33747\/revisions\/33750"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}