 Figure skating's prestigious Grand Prix Final is here | | | The biggest annual event in figure skating is the world championships. The second-biggest is the Grand Prix Final. It starts tomorrow in Beijing. Here's what to know:
It's quite exclusive.
The Grand Prix of Figure Skating's regular season consists of six events held all over the world in October and November. Skaters are allowed to compete at up to two of those stops. They earn points based on where they finish, and those points decide who gets to compete in the Final. Only the top six in each discipline — men's, women's, pairs and ice dance — are invited.
The only other time we'll see this many of the world's best figure skaters gathered in one place this season is at the world championships in March in Montreal.
Canada is well represented.
While no Canadian singles skaters qualified (the fourth straight time that's happened), the country has a total of five entries spread across the two tandem events — two in pairs, three in ice dance.
The top Canadian duo is Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, who won the ice dance title at last year's Final in Italy before earning their second bronze in three years at the world championships. For the second straight season, Gilles and Poirier won both of their Grand Prix assignments — this time at Skate Canada International in Vancouver and the Cup of China — to finish atop the standings.
The pairs team of Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps also went 2-for-2 to lead their event. Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud qualified third in pairs while Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Sorensen and Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha tied for fifth in the ice dance rankings.
Another three Canadians duos, all in pairs, qualified for the Junior Grand Prix Final, which is also happening this week in Beijing.
Other skaters to watch:
As long as Russians remain banned from international figure skating over the invasion of Ukraine, it will be easier for everyone else to win medals. But Canada's skaters are still facing stiff competition.
Gilles and Poirier will battle American rivals Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who also won both of their Grand Prix starts to tie the Canadians for first in the ice dance standings. The reigning world champions are looking to win the Final for the first time after four runner-up finishes. Italians Charlène Guignard and Marco Fabbri, who took silver at the world championships and have a gold and a silver this season, are also contenders.
In pairs, the new German team of Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin matched Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps atop the standings by winning both of their regular-season events. Reigning world champions Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara have been out since Kihara suffered a back injury in the fall.
The individual events feature Japanese stars Kaori Sakamoto and Shoma Uma, who each won their second consecutive world title last season. Sakamoto missed the podium in both of her previous trips to the Final, but she's the women's favourite after winning a pair of golds this season.
Uno, who settled for two silvers, is defending his men's title against Grand Prix leader Adam Siao Him Fa of France and Olympic silver medallist Yuma Kagiyama of Japan, who both beat him on tour this season. American phenom Ilya "the Quad God" Malinin is in the mix too after earning the highest score of the season in his victory at Skate America.
How to watch:
CBC Sports is live-streaming every skate at the Final, starting with the pairs short program on Friday at 5 a.m. ET. See the full schedule here.
Learn more about the top contenders here. Find out who CBC Sports figure skating analysis Asher Hill is picking to win gold here. Vote for Gilles and Poirier in the Canadian Sport Awards here. | | |  | Canadians Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier are trying to repeat as ice dance champions at the Grand Prix Final. (Geoff Robins/AFP via Getty Images) | | | Quickly… | | | Some other things to know:
1. Christine Sinclair got the farewell she deserved.
More than 48,000 fans turned out last night to Vancouver's B.C. Place Stadium (renamed Christine Sinclair Place for the occasion) to watch one of Canada's greatest athletes play her final match for her country. The pre-game celebration featured a video tribute to Sinclair's 23 years with the Canadian women's soccer team, which saw her play in six Women's World Cup and captain the squad to three Olympic medals, including gold in 2021 in Tokyo. 190 youth soccer players were brought onto the field, representing the record number of international goals scored by Sinclair — 62 more than all-time men's leader Cristiano Ronaldo.
Sinclair did not add to her total in her Canadian-record 331st and final international match. But she walked off victorious after helping set up a first-half goal by Quinn that sent Canada to a 1-0 win over Australia. Sinclair left the game to a standing ovation in the 12th minute of the second half (a nod to her jersey number), handing her captain's armband to Sophie Schmidt, a longtime teammate and friend who was also playing her final match for Canada. Read more about Sinclair's fitting sendoff and watch the best moments in this piece by CBC Sports contributor Chris Jones.
2. The NHL is "decentralizing" its draft.
Rather than have executives from every team set up shop on an arena floor to conduct business in full view of the public, the league wants to make its draft a tighter and more TV-friendly event, a la the NFL and NBA. That means leaving most of the decision-makers at home, where they'll make picks and other moves from a remote "war room" while the top prospects attend the draft in person.
But first, the NHL will do one more draft the old way this June at The Sphere, a (very) fancy new Las Vegas concert venue with a wraparound LED screen and other immersive video and audio technology that cost $2.3 billion US to build.
Commissioner Gary Bettman also said Tuesday at the NHL's board of governors meetings in Seattle that the first big salary-cap increase since the pandemic is coming for next season, and plans are moving ahead for a four-time international tournament in February 2025 featuring Canada, the United States, Sweden and Finland. Bettman said the goal remains for NHL players to participate in the Olympics in 2026, followed by a full World Cup in 2028 as the league aims for a big international event every other year. Read more about the developments coming out of the meetings here.
3. Joe Biden wants an Indigenous lacrosse team in the Los Angeles Olympics.
The White House announced today that the President is pushing for the Indigenous nation that invented lacrosse to play under its own flag when the sport returns to the Games in 2028. Biden's request for the Haudenosaunee (formerly known as the Iroquois) Nationals to compete as their own team would require a rule change from the IOC, which only allows teams that are part of an official national Olympic committee to compete.
The Haudenosaunee is a collection of six Indigenous nations with territory on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border in the Great Lakes area. They have competed as their own team at several international lacrosse events since 1990 and are currently ranked third in the world, behind the U.S. and Canada.
Lacrosse last appeared as a medal event at the Olympics in 1908. In 1904, Canada was represented by two teams. The Shamrock Lacrosse Team won gold while a squad made up of players from the Mohawk nation (part of the Haudenosaunee confederacy) got the bronze in the three-team tournament. | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
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