Canada’s top skaters will head to Boston, Massachusetts this week to compete at the 2025 ISU World Figure Skating Championships. The stakes at this event will be especially high for our athletes, who are looking to secure entries for the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Milano- Cortina.

Skate Ontario is thrilled that six Ontario athletes will compete at these world championships, which will take place from March 24-30, 2025. Ontario representation in every event!

Roman Sadovsky

Men

National champion Roman Sadovsky will represent Canada in the men’s event. His short program, skated to Unconscious By Charlie Winston, is an emotional piece that tackles the theme of fighting inner demons and overcoming obstacles.

“The short program was a special creative process.” Roman told Skate Ontario. “There was a huge attention to detail and story telling, with the big theme being the idea of ‘overcoming inner demons’. It was a very cool experience working with [Marie-France Dubreuil and Sam Chouinard] and the team at I.AM, and it gave me a new perspective on performance.”

His free program is set to music from the movie Interstellar. “I’ve been training really hard all season long and I’m excited to perform again on the World stage. Interstellar is probably one of my favourite movies and I think I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched it. The themes I’m trying to express in the program are very human feelings of curiosity, love, and our limited time on the planet.”

Roman has already competed in two previous world championships, once in 2022 and again in 2024. “I’ve had a lot of good experiences and personal growth in this quadrennial,” Roman said. “Those experiences help me to go into these big competitions with a higher level of confidence in myself and my skating. Although this is my third world championships. Each one seems to carry its own type of energy and I’m looking forward to see how this one will feel.”

Madeline Schizas

Women

A second national champion, Madeline Schizas, will compete in the women’s event following a solid fifth place finish at Skate Canada International earlier this season. She will skate her crowd-pleasing short program to The Lion King, and her free program to Butterfly Lovers’ Violin Concerto, an iconic Chinese orchestral piece.

Regarding her free program, Madeline told Skate Ontario, “I am excited to perform my new program at worlds. I have been working with a Chinese dance teacher since Canadians and hope this helps me bring authenticity to my performance. This program was choreographed by Alison Purkiss, who I have worked with on and off since I was in middle school. She knows me really well and we worked together to come up with a program I’m proud of.”

This will be Maddie’s fifth world championships! When asked to reflect on what has changed since her first worlds in 2021, she told Skate Ontario, “Thinking back to my first worlds, I think I know much more now, and am a lot more mentally prepared to put out good programs. Stockholm in 2021 was so fun and I look back on it as the real beginning of my senior career.”

Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud

Pairs

Competing in the pairs event are Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud. This team has seen incredible success since pairing up in 2022, and will head into their third world championships together after several podium finishes on the international stage, including (but not limited to) bronze at the 2025 Four Continents Championships, bronze at the 2024 Grand Prix Cup of China, and gold at the 2023 Grand Prix de France.

They also achieved a personal best score and won the free program at nationals in Laval earlier this season.

Lia and Trennt will skate their short program to Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing) by Louis Prima, and their free program to Tango Jalousie and Por una Cabeza from the film Scent of a Woman.

Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier

Ice Dance

Competing in the ice dance event at their 11th World Championships are the highly decorated Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier. Piper and Paul are heading into these Worlds after securing their second consecutive ISU Four Continents Championships gold medals and winning their fourth national title. This team won the free dance and placed second overall at last year’s World Championships in Montreal.

Their Barbie and Ken-inspired rhythm dance is skated to music by The Beach Boys and The Surfaris. Their free dance, skated to A Whiter Shade of Pale by Annie Lennox, was originally a show program that was born out of the team’s idea to create a tango to a non-tango piece of music.

Ahead of competing this program at the 2024 Skate Canada International competition, Paul told Skate Ontario, “We’ve been calling this program ‘the essence of tango’. It’s not a real tango program. It is not to tango music, but we have some of the tango music in there, and some of the tango feeling in there…We’re really excited to keep presenting it throughout the season and to keep sharing it with more people.”

When asked about their goals for Worlds 2025, Piper and Paul told Skate Ontario, “We want to win. We want to have two solid skates. We want to perform at our best and win the competition.”