RainDrops

In October 2025, Shane and I visited Angers, France and London, England for 10 days of performances and adventures. These posts capture the details of our trip.

The high of the women’s medal ceremony had hardly worn off before we were due back at the rink for the next two competitive events.

The men’s short program was first up (with 12 skaters). Most memorable from this event were two moments of cheering:

• During the Japanese men’s skates, fresh-off-their-win medalists Kaori, Ami, and Rion came out to with a big Japanese flag to cheer from the back of the stands. Of course the cameras caught them so the whole audience could smile and laugh about this too. (They would return to cheer on the Japanese pair as well.)
• France’s Adam Siao Him Fa was one of the faces we had seen around the rink a lot; his mom was even running a little fan merchandise booth for him. As a longtime beloved skater, Adam’s presence on the ice made the French crowd (delightfully) lose its mind.

The pairs’ free skate followed the men, meaning medals were once again on the line. This event was rockier than the women’s: the Canadians missed their first element, which threw off the rest of their routine a bit, and even the Japanese finished on a rough-around-the-edges lift. (It was interesting how we felt more nervous or confident about elements, based on how these had gone in practice.)

Nonetheless, these two teams still ended up second and first (respectively), with a strong performance by Hungarians Maria Pavlova and Alexei Sviatchenko landing them in third.

The following morning we got up early for the final public practice sessions (ice dance and men, since they were the only ones left to compete). I loved seeing Great Britain’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson do another partial run-through of their Scottish dance program.

…and this free dance was all the more fun during competition that afternoon, with the crowd clapping in time to the final poppy bagpipe rendition of “Auld Lang Syne”. I can’t wait to see this one done for an Olympic audience! It’s a banger.

The new French ice dance pair Laurence Fournier-Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron ultimately won gold, with Lilah and Lewis taking silver, and my favourite Lithuanians Allison and Saulius scoring a bronze. (The Italians and audience were once again aghast at another low score, further fueling conspiracy theories!)

The crowd went bananas for the French win of course, led by a huge section of fans who had shown up in matching “allez bleus” shirts with flags, drums, and organized cheers (not to mention giant heads of French skaters). The mood was super jaunty going into the final competitive event: the men’s free skate.

The first highlight was watching American Andrew Torgashev pull off an awesome routine. He’d done poorly in the short program (finishing last) and then struggled in the practices. Having experienced those sessions, we were extra invested in his final performance; it was lovely seeing him skate surprisingly clean.

The next high point was when Adam came out. The crowd was of course going bananas again (and every other fruit besides), but since his skating has a wild inconsistency to it, we didn’t know what to expect. Jump after jump passed successfully, though, and minute by minute the music and performance built to something truly beautiful, emotional, and nearly flawless!

The second the music stopped, sheer elation exploded out of everyone around us. The local favourite had given one of the skates of his life in front of a home crowd, and it was akin to winning the Olympics. He was thrilled, his coaching team was thrilled, the entire venue was on its feet, and I was running out of tissues. =)

When his score came in, shooting him well into the lead, the crowd could not have been happier. Certainly some people would have gladly had the competition end there. However, more skaters were left to go, including one in particular who would skate last: American Ilia Malinin.

If you have not heard of Ilia, he is a skating prodigy whose star has been rapidly rising over the last few years with his unbelievable mastery over quadruple jumps. Because of this technical prowess, Ilia has become more or less unbeatable. So you could almost feel a slight (non-rink-related) chill in the air as he entered the ice (with Georgia’s Nika Egadze in second and Adam still holding the lead).

The thing is, though, Ilia’s skill is undeniable. By the time he’d completed his first few (flawless) quads, the crowd couldn’t help but get behind him too. (I have a vivid memory of the woman next to me shaking her head in amazed disbelief as Ilia landed an effortless quad right below us.)

Ilia’s program was loaded with technical perfection and emotion, ending in another standing ovation and hearty acceptance of his win—by 40 freaking points!

As one spectator’s sign said: “It’s Ilia’s world. We’re just living in it.”

The medal ceremonies for the ice dance and men finished out the afternoon. The venue stayed nice and packed until the end, with the majority eager to share in the French successes.

Our first live skating competition could not have gone better. Whatever expectations we’d arrived with were blown out of the water. The ups and downs and drama of top-level sport kept us spellbound and inspired for four days, erasing our real-world worries entirely.

It was like a vacation within a vacation. Luckily our stay on Planet Skating had one more experience in store for us.

Next up: final celebratory skates and a farewell to France!

In October 2025, Shane and I visited Angers, France and London, England for 10 days of performances and adventures. These posts capture the details of our trip.

Saturday was the busiest day at the rink! Practices for each discipline happened in the morning, competitive events for ice dance and women occurred in the afternoon, and events for men and pairs landed in the evening. It was good timing to be indoors all day: the weather had turned (colder and drizzly) and I was not up to exerting much energy.

We had stopped by a grocery store on our way back to the hotel the previous evening to pick up supplies to help with my malaise. However, we couldn’t technically bring certain items into the venue, so I had to be sneaky on how I loaded my backpack to smuggle in “contraband” such as cereal (ha).

We began the day by attending the women’s, men’s, and pairs practice sessions. There were a number of morning highlights:

• Seeing Kaori skate more (of course), reveal her new costume (classy!), and do a run-through of her “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” free skate was all thrilling. We—along with several others in the practice audience—picked up a fan-created Kaori cheer sign, which we also brought to the later competition.

• Getting a first-hand look at Estonian Mihhail Selevko’s devilishly perfect zombie costume (which he designed) was awesome. We had seen his Halloween-inspired short program routine online in a competition earlier in the fall. I adore the creepy neon green skeleton hands—they popped during spins especially!

• Watching the pairs again highlighted even more how hard this sport is! Riku took a nasty spill on a throw jump, resulting in a big bleeding gash on her knee; of course she kept on practicing. (The more we saw all the women in costumes, the more we noticed the cuts and bruises they each bear. Ouch!)

After the practice sessions ended, we were ushered out of the rink area back into the entrance hallway to re-enter for the afternoon competition. First up was the ice dance short program (with 10 pairs competing, including Allison and Salius and Canadians Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac). Unlike the other disciplines, ice dance picks a theme that all skaters must use for the short (aka the rhythm dance). This year it’s music from the 1990s.

The ice dance pairs all did pretty well, and we enjoyed the Georgians’ 90s grunge medley especially.

Two teams had slight stumbles, which can be about as crazy as it gets for ice dance (this being the discipline with the relative least risk). However, we experienced some high drama when the Italians Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri finished their routine.

This well-established pair is considered one of the best, and they finished fourth in last year’s world championships. The Grand Prix de France was their first competition of the new season, meaning it was the first time anyone had seen (or judged) their programs. We enjoyed their Backstreet Boys rhythm dance, and the crowd seemed engaged as well, clapping along as it progressed.

The scoring turned out to be disastrously and unexpectedly low though! When the numbers were revealed (likely placing the pair out of medal contention), the audience collectively gasped and booed. The team in the Kiss & Cry looked perplexed and quickly stormed off.

The Kiss & Cry is so called because it can be a place of emotion, but such a strong and negative reaction is fairly unusual in our experience. As much as we felt bad for the skaters, I’ll admit we liked being there for what would become a key Moment (and conspiracy-filled controversy!) for the whole Grand Prix.

The women’s long program (aka free skate) followed. I was grateful to enjoy all the performances this time around. Standout skates included France’s Lorrine Schild finishing a clean program on home turf and Japan’s Rion Sumiyoshi ending a personal best (plus quadruple jump attempt!) with a joyful final step sequence to Adiemus’s “Rain Dance“.

It was definitely more nerve-racking this day as we approached Kaori’s skate.

We need not have worried, though: Kaori was stunning, skating with the speed, beauty, power, and near perfection we admire her for. The crowd enthusiastically cheered her on, and I was of course in tears before the final spin even ended.

The finishing moment was everything we’d wished for in coming to France. I hardly know what to say! To witness someone you admire do well at the thing they are best at, live; to add to the roar of an audience; to be on your feet, swept up in an outpouring of appreciation (not to mention flying stuffies hitting the ice and, hilariously, almost Kaori) was pure magic.

…and impossible to capture well.

I guess as the saying goes, you just had to be there. =)

Ultimately, Japanese skater Ami Nakai had an astonishingly perfect performance too (with another triple axel!) and barely edged out Kaori for the gold. Of course we were disappointed for our favourite skater, but it didn’t detract from how happy we were to experience a part of this Olympic (and retirement) year for her.

Kaori is also known for enthusiastically supporting her fellow competitors. The way she immediately celebrated Ami’s senior-level debut win (as well as a bronze medal for other teammate Rion) was heart-warming, filling us again with feelings of bienfaisance. Skating sportsmanship FTW!

The women’s medal ceremony started immediately after the competition ended. It was a blast to hear the familiar International Skating Union (ISU) celebratory themes (most especially my beloved “Thunder” looping endlessly as the skaters did their victory lap) and join everyone in applauding these ladies’ tremendous efforts once again.

What a memorable Saturday and start to the Grand Prix podiums this year! And it wasn’t over yet.

Next up: the men, more medals, and the beginning of the end for our time in France!

In October 2025, Shane and I visited Angers, France and London, England for 10 days of performances and adventures. These posts capture the details of our trip.

Friday evening treated us to the first two competitive events of Grand Prix de France: the women’s short program (with 12 skaters, including Kaori) and the pairs’ short program (with 8 pairs, including Riku and Ryuichi, as well as Canadians Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps).

For those unfamiliar with ice skating, skaters in all the disciplines earn one cumulative score for each competition. This score is calculated by adding up the points earned from skating two programs on different days: a short one (around 3 minutes) and a longer one (around 4). Each program has specific elements that must be included and scored based on the discipline, with more variations (and thus points) allowed in the longer program than the short.

Because of this structure, the short programs can be less dramatic—and may have lower attendance. Medals, after all, are not yet (completely) on the line.

When we arrived back at the rink before the women’s short program, though, the queue was already stretching down the block! With the small group of us at practices, it had been hard to gauge how full the venue would be for the main events. We were glad to see such enthusiasm and feel the energy of a bigger crowd.

Since the athletes’ entrance was just down the sidewalk from the public one, it was also fun to spot skaters heading to the competition (often with wheeled luggage bags in tow). The occasional “celebrity” sightings made the time fly by as we waited to pass through security.

Soon we were settling into our seats. For practices (which had no assigned seating), we had sat behind the judging panel. This evening was our first time sitting in our assigned section on the other side of the ice. The view was still excellent, and we liked being directly across from where the skaters entered the ice and waited for scores (this latter area is called the “Kiss & Cry”).

It was so exciting once the lights dimmed and the familiar competition music started up. We even enjoyed the odd novelty of hearing the French anthem being sung, with a French “flag” created with lights on the ice. The first Grand Prix of the season was really underway!

…aaand this exact moment was unfortunately when things went south for me. Earlier in the day, I had begun to feel unwell but hoped it was just jet lag. Unfortunately, my body decided then and there that it had reached some kind of limit. I spent the entirety of the first six women’s warmup and performances unable to sit or watch the skaters for more than a few minutes at a time.

It was agony. For a while I thought I was going to have no choice but go back to the hotel. Had I really come this far only to miss out on one of Kaori’s competitive skates? (And then what if I didn’t get better before the next day’s long program??)

Thankfully, I started to stabilize by the end of the first group. After an hour or so, I was able to sit again, and Kaori going last in the second group gave me enough recovery time to be present with and appreciate her skate.

Kaori did great: a few shaky moments, but a beautiful, clean program to end the women’s competition. She is often—as one of our favourite commenters likes to say—”the supreme competitor” in high-stakes competitions. And it meant all the more to applaud her after worrying I would miss the moment entirely!

Since I was still stable, we stayed for the pairs’ short program too. The Canadians did well—completing their highly publicized assisted back flip successfully!—and Riku and Ryuichi dominated with their “Paint It Black”. (That song through the loudspeakers at top volume was intense. We loved it.)

Partway through pairs’ event, I was also able to appreciate the environment more. It was delightful how the crowd applauded every element (even missed ones), how they cheered the French and non-French athletes, and how quickly they started clapping along to any livelier music. We had a ball joining in with it all. (And Shane took care of waving our mini flags for each country.)

Later in the trip, we chatted with a lovely French woman who said what she adores about skating is exactly this: it’s uniquely bienfaisant. That is, it’s a sport inclined to be kind and generous to its athletes, with audiences and commentators supporting the skill and artistry all around, rather than focusing only on specific countries or individuals.

So although I felt far from my best as we left the arena that night, my heart was full of bienfaisance. (And perhaps immersion in this was part of what helped turn things around for me too.)

Next up: a controversy, Kaori’s closing skate, and the first competition medals!