Trail of Heroes: A last skate and first medals

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!