2025 World Junior Figure Skating Championships: Pairs
Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava of Georgia easily defended their title on Saturday in the Pairs event in Debrecen, Hungary. Sofiia Holichenko and Artem Darenskyi of Ukraine pocketed the silver, while Martina Ariano Kent and Charly Laliberte-Laurent of Canada captured the bronze.
Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava
The defending champions were clearly in a league of their own in the short program. All elements were clean, including a level-three triple twist, throw triple Salchow and side-by-side double Axels. The team showed speed throughout and were confident in their routine to “Why?” by Bronski Beat. The lift and footwork were graded a level three, while the spin was a level four, and they racked up many positive grades of execution (GOE) throughout. They finished first with 69.18 points with over an 11-point lead going into the free skate.
Berulava felt the program went well but said he felt some pressure and was a bit nervous about the double Axel.
“But overall, we don’t feel too much pressure, we just want to do our job,” he said. “Of course, we’d like to defend this title, but we’re focused on doing our best.”
“I wasn’t nervous at all because I’m very confident in the double Axel, I know I can land 10 out of 10,” added Metelkina. “The throw triple Salchow was absolutely new for me. I had never done a throw triple Sal before. Luka had done it with his previous partner, but I hadn’t. We usually do throw flip and loop, so we learned it within a week. It turned out to be easy for us.”
The team has been receiving criticism for competing at this event as they also compete at the senior level.
“I just want to say that there are skaters here who are even older than me, and the rules allow it,” Berulava pointed out. “So why shouldn’t we compete here?”
“For us, the most important thing is to gain more experience,” Metelkina added. “We are still a fairly new team, and we want to do as many competitions as possible leading up to the Olympic season. This is only our second season together, so every competition helps us grow.”
The 2025 European bronze medalists put out a near-solid free skate to “A Necessary End” by Saltillo. The only error came when Berulava put his hand down on the second jump in a triple Salchow-double Axel-double Axel sequence. They otherwise produced a solid throw triple flip and throw triple loop, while picking up a level four on both lifts and the pair spin. They scored 121.83 points for first place for their strong routine, and with 191.01 points total, easily defended their title.
“We are really happy to win today, we want to thank our coaches and the federation,” said Berulava. “I am happy right now. We are very happy to have defended this title. Our free program wasn’t ideal, (but) we hope it was a good preparation for the World Championships. We will approach the World Championships the same way as these championships. We will prepare very seriously.”
Sofiia Holichenko and Artem Darenskyi
Holichenko and Darenskyi showed lots of speed and good skating skills in their short program to “Hit the Road Jack.” They produced solid double flips, a throw triple Salchow and a level four spin and difficult lift. The 2024 JGP Solidarity Cup silver medalists placed second with a new season’s best of 57.40 points.
“It was a little hard for us after the quick turnaround from Milan,” said Darenskyi. “This version of our program, we haven’t really practiced much. There are some different elements, like the double flip and the throw triple Salchow. And we didn’t have the chance to work on the double Axel.”
Currently, Holichenko and Darenskyi are the only senior pair team in Ukraine.
“There is a junior team, but we want to help them develop and support other Ukrainian teams,” Darenskyi said. “We also want to secure spots on the Junior Grand Prix for Ukraine. And since this is my last Junior Worlds, it’s another opportunity for us to skate in front of an audience.”
“We went home for just one day after Milan and then came here straight away, so we didn’t have much time to prepare,” said Holichenko. “And here, we were only at the practice rink. We didn’t have any practice in the main rink, so today was our first time skating there.”
Their goal at this event is to skate two clean programs, but they also want to do the triple flip in the free skate.
The Road to Trophy 26 bronze medalists gave a powerful and dynamic free skate to “Cosmic Love” by Florence and The Machine to place second (106.66). Their routine featured a throw triple loop and throw triple Salchow, but there were problems on the side-by-side jumps. The opening triple flips were deemed underrotated and Darenskyi stepped out of first jump in a triple Salchow-double Axel sequence. Still the lifts were strong, two of which were graded a level four, and they placed second with 106.66 points. Their total score of 164.06 kept them comfortably in second place overall.
“Well, we’re glad that we won this medal, but it was not our main target,” Darenskyi said. “Our main target was to secure the spots for Ukraine and the World Championships in Boston, where we hope to qualify. We hoped for the triple flip to work here, but maybe in Boston it will work.”
Darenskyi added that he will need an operation on his right leg after the World Championships.
“It will force me maybe around two months off the ice, but I can’t really say yet what will happen and how it will affect me,” he said. “So the situation is a bit insecure at the moment.”
Martina Ariano Kent and Charly Laliberte-Laurent
Ariano Kent and Laliberte-Laurent put out a strong short program to “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles).” The two-time national junior silver medalists only earned a level one on the triple twist, but the double Axels and throw triple Salchow were clean. They finished fourth (55.81) going into the free skate.
“Today felt amazing!” said Ariano Kent. “It was a really good skate, and we feel much better prepared compared to last Junior Worlds.”
“Yeah, we reached our goal for the short program,” Laliberte-Laurent added. ” We think we couldn’t have done any better, and it feels really good.”
The team was noticeably absent the first half of the season as Laliberte-Laurent had shoulder surgery during the summer.
“I couldn’t skate for five months because of that,” he said.
“I trained on my own, practiced my jumps, and even competed in one local competition in singles,” said Ariano Kent of the time she had. “It’s not that I considered going back to singles, I like pairs much more, but it was just to keep myself going and motivated.”
The team, who placed fifth last year, did three back-to-back competitions and are very glad to be at this event.
“Our goal was maybe to get into the last warm-up, but we know it’s a very competitive competition,” said Ariano Kent. “We did what we could today, and the rest is out of our control. We are very happy.”
The 2023-24 Junior Grand Prix finalists put out a strong free skate “Radioactive” and “Finally Free” to place third with a new season’s best of 99.21 points. The triple twist was only graded a level one and Ariano Kent put her hands down on a throw triple loop, but they were otherwise solid. The landed their side-by-side jumps, a double Axel-double Axel sequence and double Salchows, as well as the throw triple Salchow. Both lifts were graded a level four, as did the pair spin. With a total score of 155.02, the team rose to third place overall to clinch the bronze.
“Oh my god, I cannot believe this right now! This is a dream come true!” said an excited Laliberte-Laurent. “During my rehab, the first six months, I really thought I would never be coming back to the ice. But now I’m here. I feel like this episode only made us stronger and made this result today possible. We are super happy!”
“It already felt so great being in the last warm-up,” added Ariano Kent. “It felt so good being with the ‘big guns.’ We were repeating among our team ahead of the performance the same key points over and over again, and we think that really helped us today.”
Oxana Vouillamoz and Tom Bouvart
Switzerland’s Oxana Vouillamoz and Tom Bouvart gave a strong and entertaining performance to selections from The Mask. The national champions showed a level-two triple twist, and the double Axels and throw triple Salchow were clean. The lift was only graded a level two, and they received negative GOEs on the final combination spin, placing sixth (54.82).
“It was very good today,” said Vouillamoz. “Some little mistakes, but we had fun and we enjoyed today.”
“Yeah, I was very concentrated on the jumps, so I was a little bit unconcentrated during the lift,” Bouvart admitted. “We lost some levels, but overall, we’re very pleased.”
The 2025 Bavarian Open junior silver medalists gave a powerful free skate to music from Blood Diamond, but it wasn’t perfect. Bouvart took a fall on the side-by-side triple toes and Vouillamoz two-footed a huge throw triple loop. However, they landed a double Axel-double Axel sequence, a throw triple Salchow and a throw triple loop, while showing good skating skills throughout. They placed fourth in this segment and overall (98.43/153.25).
“We are pretty happy with this performance,” said Vouillamoz. “We’re still a new team, so for us, every competition is about gaining experience. Of course, we wish we could have done better, there’s always room to grow, but overall, we’re satisfied with what we did today.”
“I made a little error again,” pointed out Bouvart. “At Europeans, it was one jump, and now it was the other. So that’s definitely something I want to improve on. Our next goal is the World Championships in Boston, and we will really want to focus on the short program because the level is so high. Hopefully, we can qualify.”
“This competition was also about gaining experience and collecting points so that in the future, we can be in later warm-up groups and improve our overall ranking,” Vouillamoz summed up.
Rounding out the top eight
China’s Jiaxuan Zhang and Yihang Huang, who were third after the short, placed ninth in the free skate and fifth overall (151.41). The 2024-25 Junior Grand Prix Final champions were not pleased with their free skate, and plan to start preparing for next season.
“We will be skating in seniors,” said Zhang. “We think we have to make our technical elements stronger and more difficult so that we can compete with the seniors.”
When asked if the Olympic Games in Milan are on their mind, Yihang responded with a loud and determined “Yes!”
USA’s Olivia Flores and Luke Wang moved up two spots to sixth place overall (148.40).
“Yeah, today we feel okay,” said Flores. “Of course, not everything worked, but we gave our best out there.”
“This was definitely a very difficult season, and honestly, this past week was the hardest of all,” said Wang. “Last year, we were kind of thrown into it, everything was fresh and new. But this year, we really felt the pressure of living up to certain expectations, and that wasn’t easy. That being said, we absolutely loved our programs this season. They meant a lot to us, so performing them was really special.”
Flores and Wang will also be moving up to the senior level next season and excited for a fresh start.
“It feels like we’re striving when stepping into something new so we’re looking forward to it,” said Wang.
Romane Telemaque and Lucas Coulon of France finished seventh overall (147.35), followed closely by Canada’s Jazmine Desrochers and Kieran Thrasher (147.35).
The French were happy with their skate, but were hoping to break the 150-mark.
“But then we saw that the death spiral didn’t count, and that’s really frustrating because we don’t even know why,” Coulon said of the free skate. “We were very happy with our performance, but I think if the death spiral had counted, we would have reached our goal. So right now, we’re kind of a little bit sad and puzzled about it.”
Desrochers and Thrasher were a bit disappointed, not so much about the results, but because they didn’t renew their personal bests.
“Training at home has been going so well, so it’s really a little frustrating right now,” said Desrochers.
“Now we’ll have to go back to work for the new season,” said her partner. “We still have to plan everything, and we haven’t yet decided if we will stay junior or move up to senior.”
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