By: Dylan Nazareth

Top Ontario pairs skaters Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud are off to a stellar start on the Grand Prix circuit. Making their Skate Canada International debut in October, they kicked things off with a personal best short program, earning their top result of the year so far with a fourth-place finish overall.

This season, the duo are skating two new programs, which they debuted at the Glacier Falls Summer Classic back in August. Speaking at Skate Canada High Performance Camp later that month, the pair shared how good it felt to shake off the rust of the summer and show off their brand-new routines.

Photo credit: Hayley Roberts (@hayleyjennr)

“As soon as we got back out there, we practiced and we looked at each other, like, oh yeah, this is where we love to be,” said Michaud. “Where else would we wanna be? It was really nice to get those out there.”

Amidst a busy Grand Prix schedule, the duo have their sights set on one ultimate goal: to make their Winter Olympics debut this February in Milan. It’s a date they’ve had circled on the calendar since first teaming up, and now it’s less than 100 days away.

“When we had our first meeting three years ago, it was very much on our radar,” said Pereira. “And that was kind of one of the motivators of becoming a pair and a partnership, that we had our eyes set on this year’s Games. So to say that it’s this season and it’s coming up in a few months, it’s pretty wild.”

Pereira and Michaud entered the season set on earning their place on the Olympic team, and they’re confident this season’s programs will seal the deal. Their short is skated to “Say You Love Me” by Jessie Ware, a romantic number that pushes them both technically and in their performance.

“We’ve labeled it as a modern-day love story,” said Pereira. “It’s a push and pull, that’s the best way to describe it. We’re really loving the process of developing the story and learning more about how we wanna portray it.”

Part of that process this past summer included working with ice dancers to fine-tune the performance aspect, something they had developed earlier in the year while touring with Stars on Ice. Seeing that they skated a career-best short program in Saskatoon last month, it’s clear that so far their hard work is paying off.

And then there’s the long program. Skated to tracks from the 1986 film The Mission, the music is anthemic and well-suited for the grand stage on which they want to show it off.

“We heard it for the first time and just loved it,” said Pereira. “We felt it was very Olympic, very uplifting and triumphant towards the end. We could just picture ourselves skating to it in a big stadium.”

Photo Credit: Tina Weltz (@TinaWeltz_Media)

More than just music, Pereira added that the track serves as a metaphor for their hunger to see their Olympic dreams come to fruition this season.

“This is our year and this is our mission,” she said. “It’s how we want this season to feel. How we want to do it and experience it together.”  

Pereira and Michaud continue their Grand Prix campaign next weekend, set to take the ice in Helsinki for the Finlandia Trophy. They are part of an all-Skate Ontario contingent competing at the event, including Roman Sadovsky, Stephen Gogolev, Madeline Schizas, and ice dance duo Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier.