2025-2026 Canadian Figure Skating

[saine]

Gabrielle Daleman posted a clip from her SP at Broadmoor (her 3T-3T) and also announced that her next competition will be in Philadelphia (the Philadelphia Summer Championships should be it):

 

[NanaPat]

So who is on the alternate list for GP assignments? I take it KMS is close to the top?

There's a list of skaters by season best, showing GP assignments and noting age-ineligible skaters here By my count, it looks like Medland-Spence is 7th on the substitute list.

 

[FlossieH]

I've been having a think about this. I wouldn't actually object to paying a small annual fee for dailymotion access to all the Canadian regional and national events,, if that was needed for them to be able to continue the streaming. Paying separately for each Region or competition, and on different platforms, is not an attractive proposition. I was unimpressed with Ontario's own streaming service for sectionals. The quality was poor and the added commentary (which must have added to the costs of producing the stream!) did not add anything worthwhile.

 

[FlossieH]

There's a list of skaters by season best, showing GP assignments and noting age-ineligible skaters here By my count, it looks like Medland-Spence is 7th on the substitute list.

Thank you - I'd been looking for that a couple of days ago. I knew that AlexRus had posted it, but I couldn't find it anywhere!

Katherine MS is 7th on the list, but there are 8 replacements needed before she gets a second spot. The top skater on the list needs to spots before they move on to the next one and not all of the eligible skaters above her have spots at the moment.

 

[Diana Delafield]

Filming other people's children without permission is definitely a bad idea. Our community center visits classes occasionally to take pictures that they use for publicity, like in the Recreation Guide. They only photograph participants who have given consent in writing. And this is for adults! I imagine they're even more careful about children.

The father swore he only focused on his son kitting up in the dressing room, but other parents were concerned about background images he might not have noticed, or reflections in a mirror. Before internet days, young adult male hockey players were notorious for leaving the dressing room doors standing open, with the occupants in full and unconcerned view of anyone passing in the narrow hallways of multi-rink arenas. In those days female figure skaters sharing the arena and the hallway kept a season NHP (Naked Hockey Players) score, like birdwatchers keep personal bird counts . The world has changed.

 

[4everchan]

I've been having a think about this. I wouldn't actually object to paying a small annual fee for dailymotion access to all the Canadian regional and national events,, if that was needed for them to be able to continue the streaming. Paying separately for each Region or competition, and on different platforms, is not an attractive proposition. I was unimpressed with Ontario's own streaming service for sectionals. The quality was poor and the added commentary (which must have added to the costs of producing the stream!) did not add anything worthwhile.

Exactly. If it were a good quality service, without crazy annoying adverts, coordinated nation-wide, then, it may be something I'd consider. But come on, it will probably never happen. I'd have to go into politics to explain why centralization is not something that will happen so I will just leave it to your imagination

 

[saine]

Skate Ontario August entries are up - https://skateontario.org/wp-content...Series-August-Interim-Entry-Lists_June-25.pdf

Minsol is competing under Senior Women here (and Miura/Kihara and Yoshida/Morita are going to represent Ontario with how they're entered )

Megan Woodley is also listed as representing Granite Club now, so she may have switched coaches to Lee Barkell.

 

[4everchan]

Yay ! John Kim !

 

[Jumping_Bean]

There's a list of skaters by season best, showing GP assignments and noting age-ineligible skaters here By my count, it looks like Medland-Spence is 7th on the substitute list.

Thank you - I'd been looking for that a couple of days ago. I knew that AlexRus had posted it, but I couldn't find it anywhere!

Katherine MS is 7th on the list, but there are 8 replacements needed before she gets a second spot. The top skater on the list needs to spots before they move on to the next one and not all of the eligible skaters above her have spots at the moment.

Katherine is 7th on the list indeed, as Yo Takagi (would be 5th) is doing the JGP. All other skaters ahead of her have one assignment each already. If Yuna gets the NHK Trophy host spot, then Katherine would be 6th on the list, but even if she doesn't, she will only be able to replace the withdrawal of another Japanese woman, as Japan has maxed out its spots.

The current shortlist for each GP would be:

	GP de France	GP Cup of China	GP Skate Canada Intl	GP HNK Trophy	GP Skate America	GP Finlandia Trophy
1.	(Yuna Aoki*)	(Yuna Aoki*)	Sofia Samodelkina	(Yuna Aoki*)	(Yuna Aoki*)	(Yuna Aoki*)
2.	Sofia Samodelkina	Sofia Samodelkina	Jia Shin	Jia Shin	Sofia Samodelkina	Sofia Samodelkina
3.	Jia Shin	Livia Kaiser	Livia Kaiser	Livia Kaiser	Jia Shin	Jia Shin
4.	Ahsun Yun	Ahsun Yun	Anna Pezzetta	Ahsun Yun	Livia Kaiser	Livia Kaiser
5.	Anna Pezzetta	Anna Pezzetta	(Katherine Medland Spence*)	Lea Serna	Ahsun Yun	Ahsun Yun
6.	Katherine Medland Spence	Katherine Medland Spence	Lea Serna	Uliyana Shiryaeva	Anna Pezzetta	Anna Pezzetta
7.	(Lea Serna*)	Lea Serna	(Uliana Shiryaeva*)	Sara-Maude Dupuis	Katherine Medland-Spence	Katherine Medland-Spence
8.	Uliana Shiryaeva	Uliana Shiryaeva	Iida Karhunen	Iida Karhunen	Uliana Shiryaeva	Lea Serna

*Only as host pick for home GP or replacing a skater from the same country

Obviously, as withdrawals and host picks roll in, skaters will be removed from this list, but this is the current state of the replacement list.

 

[kurakovabot]

Skate Ontario August entries are up - https://skateontario.org/wp-content...Series-August-Interim-Entry-Lists_June-25.pdf

Minsol is competing under Senior Women here (and Miura/Kihara and Yoshida/Morita are going to represent Ontario with how they're entered )

Megan Woodley is also listed as representing Granite Club now, so she may have switched coaches to Lee Barkell.

Yay! SO happy for Minsol! I'm kinda worried to still not have any word on Victoria Barakhtina tho.. does anyone have any info on when she'll be allowed to compete for Canada? I believe it's been over a year of her trying. She could very likely come on top of Canadian women's skating in the next quad

 

[Jumping_Bean]

Yay! SO happy for Minsol! I'm kinda worried to still not have any word on Victoria Barakhtina tho.. does anyone have any info on when she'll be allowed to compete for Canada? I believe it's been over a year of her trying. She could very likely come on top of Canadian women's skating in the next quad

The only issue I could see is if she hasn't been a resident of Canada for long enough. RusFed said they didn't even consider the release of skaters who didn't have citizenship or have been residents of their new country for at least a year, and I don't know when Vika actually came to Canada or if she has citizenship. If she doesn't and they only started the residency process in July or later, she wouldn't get the ISU clearance certificate in time for this season, but she should still be able to compete domestically if the Russian fed allows it.

 

[kurakovabot]

The only issue I could see is if she hasn't been a resident of Canada for long enough. RusFed said they didn't even consider the release of skaters who didn't have citizenship or have been residents of their new country for at least a year, and I don't know when Vika actually came to Canada or if she has citizenship. If she doesn't and they only started the residency process in July or later, she wouldn't get the ISU clearance certificate in time for this season, but she should still be able to compete domestically if the Russian fed allows it.

If i remember correctly she started posting training vids from the cricket club around august? Anyway, i hope we can at least see her at some domestic comps this season!! (I just put her name in my telegram search to see when her wish to transfer was firstly announced - it was may 30th 2024. Apparently yes, she is training & living in Canada since august and RusFed made the decision whether to release her or not last december but it hasn't been publicly announced anywhere)

 

[FlossieH]

Yay! SO happy for Minsol! I'm kinda worried to still not have any word on Victoria Barakhtina tho.. does anyone have any info on when she'll be allowed to compete for Canada? I believe it's been over a year of her trying. She could very likely come on top of Canadian women's skating in the next quad

There is no confirmation that Minsol will be representing Canada. Skaters can compete in Canadian domestic events whilst being affiliated to a different country for other competitions - just like Miura/Kihara are in the August Ontario competition.

 

[4everchan]

Yay! SO happy for Minsol! I'm kinda worried to still not have any word on Victoria Barakhtina tho.. does anyone have any info on when she'll be allowed to compete for Canada? I believe it's been over a year of her trying. She could very likely come on top of Canadian women's skating in the next quad

I clearly have no clue about Victoria Barakhtina. However, I'd be curious to know what she has that other Canadian women do not have. When Uliana's transfer was announced, many said she would easily be on top of Canadian skating. Turns out she is not. A lot of potential but not a complete package yet. Unless Victoria has a triple axel or quads, to beat Canadian woman skaters, she will indeed need it all.

 

[Jumping_Bean]

I clearly have no clue about Victoria Barakhtina. However, I'd be curious to know what she has that other Canadian women do not have. When Uliana's transfer was announced, many said she would easily be on top of Canadian skating. Turns out she is not. A lot of potential but not a complete package yet. Unless Victoria has a triple axel or quads, to beat Canadian woman skaters, she will indeed need it all.

Vika is, in my opinion, more well-rounded than Uliana was/is. Not as stable, but Uliana isn't as stable nowadays either. And, without being rude, I think she's in better hands than Uliana. Of course, there are areas that need improvement here too, and I don't expect her to sweep everything, particularly because she used to be a nervous competitor. We also haven't seen her in competition in over a year, and she has new coaches now, new choreographers, she likely also grew some more, we really won't know where she is at right now until we see her actually compete again.

Though I wonder if others can guess which famous Russian skater was also coached by Vika's former coach when she was young, based on these two videos:

 

[Jumping_Bean]

There is no confirmation that Minsol will be representing Canada. Skaters can compete in Canadian domestic events whilst being affiliated to a different country for other competitions - just like Miura/Kihara are in the August Ontario competition.

I don't know if they meant it like that, just that they were happy to see her on the entry list. The Korean JGP selection is on July 21-22, so I guess we'll see if she shows up there & withdraws from Ontario July Sectionals Series three days later. Or maybe she'll show up at Next Gen Camp from July 17-20, in which case we'd also have an answer. Or maybe, she doesn't show up at either JGP selection event and keeps us guessing by only doing the event in Ontario.

 

[lariko]

Vika is, in my opinion, more well-rounded than Uliana was/is. Not as stable, but Uliana isn't as stable nowadays either. And, without being rude, I think she's in better hands than Uliana. Of course, there are areas that need improvement here too, and I don't expect her to sweep everything, particularly because she used to be a nervous competitor. We also haven't seen her in competition in over a year, and she has new coaches now, new choreographers, she likely also grew some more, we really won't know where she is at right now until we see her actually compete again.

Though I wonder if others can guess which famous Russian skater was also coached by Vika's former coach when she was young, based on these two videos:

As long as she is allowed to compete with all the crazy (not to use the word I really want to use) restrictions on both sides, it's all up to her, just like it was up to Shiryaeva. They know they have to be four heads taller to get assignments, not just one. It's just how things are for immigrants.

 

[4everchan]

Vika is, in my opinion, more well-rounded than Uliana was/is. Not as stable, but Uliana isn't as stable nowadays either. And, without being rude, I think she's in better hands than Uliana. Of course, there are areas that need improvement here too, and I don't expect her to sweep everything, particularly because she used to be a nervous competitor. We also haven't seen her in competition in over a year, and she has new coaches now, new choreographers, she likely also grew some more, we really won't know where she is at right now until we see her actually compete again.

Though I wonder if others can guess which famous Russian skater was also coached by Vika's former coach when she was young, based on these two videos:

thanks.. she does have better fundamentals. I'd guess Buianova ???

 

[4everchan]

. They know they have to be four heads taller to get assignments, not just one. It's just how things are for immigrants.

I wouldn't say that's true. You'd have to give me a sample much larger than just Uliana. Who else ? I mean the recent worlds medalists for Canada, in pairs and dance had American born skaters (Piper, Deanna) in their teams. In singles skating, we see very few transfers coming in. It's actually the opposite... we see some of our skaters getting out. Uliana came in with great jumping stability, which eroded with time, but she is lacking pretty much in everything else. Spins, steps, skating skills, flow, connection with music and crowd. I have seen her compete recently and it wasn't very good. (Nationals). Minsol has under-rotation issues. That could be something difficult for her on a strict Canadian tech panel. I have a hard time accepting this statement because I find it is quite the opposite in figure skating. When a new skater from Russia or Korea is mentioned to be perhaps transferring, everyone is so welcoming, as if the Messiah is finally returning to save Canadian skating. The reality is that, even with a certain lack of consistency and perhaps star power of our top skaters, they are strong enough to hold themselves above the pack. It is not that easy to beat Maddie or Sara-Maude at this point. And if anything, Sara-Maude is definitely undermarked in skating skills.

 

[Jumping_Bean]

thanks.. she does have better fundamentals. I'd guess Buianova ???

Not quite. Though she does have a connection to Buianova, as she was coached by Ekaterina Moiseeva first, who now co-coaches with Buianova. And the other skater I was thinking of was coached by Buianova later in her career.

Vika's former coach only had a small number of notable (former) students, so you might not know her, especially as both only became more well-known after switching to other coaches. Think about it in terms of skaters, who could she remind you of? Special hint: Axel technique.