GATINEAU — Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud were standing in the mixed zone, fielding questions, when a television screen just steps away flashed scores that changed everything.
The Canadian pair, long accustomed to finishing as runners-up behind 2024 world champions Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps, realized in real time that they’d just won their first national title.
“Oh my God! We won!” Pereira gasped, laughing uncontrollably in disbelief before clutching Michaud in a tight embrace. He immediately burst into tears of joy.
The scores belonged to Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps, whose error-riddled free skate helped seal Pereira and Michaud’s stunning victory at the Canadian figure skating championships Saturday.
Pereira and Michaud, in a reintroduced “Gladiator” routine from the 2023-24 season, scored 135.03 points in their free program. That eclipsed Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps by 12.02 to make up a more than nine-point deficit following Friday’s short program.
The gold medallists finished with 204.14, while Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps settled for silver, and Kelly Ann Laurin and Loucas Éthier took bronze.
“This is what we live for,” Michaud said.
Pereira then chimed in, “This is unbelievable.”
“Shows our grit, our determination and our passion for the sport,” she added. “We’ve really put in the work over our whole three-and-a-half years together. This is going to be a good moment to sit with for a little while.”
Pereira, 21, and the 29-year-old Michaud came together in August 2022. Michaud was searching for a new teammate after longtime partner Evelyn Walsh elected to retire, and Pereira was a singles skater.
It didn’t take long for Michaud to make what at the time seemed like a lofty prediction.
“I told her when we first started skating together that I think we were going to be national champions one day,” Michaud said, before leaning over to Pereira. “So, I told you so.”
Pereira clearly remembered their first few weeks of training.
“Our first-ever short program, the title was “This Is Where We Come Alive,” and the first lyric of the program was “I can see the future,” she recalled. “We walk in during choreography, and I’ve known this guy for like two weeks, and he said, ‘I can see the future, a bunch of gold medals.’
“I was like, ‘who is this guy, he thinks we can win?’ You were right, you were. I’ll give you that one.”
Gold medal or not, Pereira and Michaud were Italy-bound with Canada’s team for the Milan Cortina Olympics to be announced Sunday evening. They finished 11th, eighth and sixth in the past three world championships.
Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps will join them at the Winter Games with Canada sending two pairs. They’ll look to regroup for their long-awaited goal — and move past a stomach bug the 42-year-old Stellato-Dudek picked up in Gatineau.
“I haven’t been able to keep food down for two days,” she revealed after the medal ceremony.
Stellato-Dudek tried Imodium, Tums, and the like, but “nothing’s working.”
“I had like five bananas a day, like a monkey,” she said. “I don’t know, nothing’s doing anything.
“I’ve been feeling really weak, but you never know what can happen at the Olympics, so it’s like you’d have to pry my dead body off that ice, I’m gonna skate no matter what.”
The veteran pair, who ranked first after the short program, lost grade-of-execution points on four of their 11 elements, including two falls. Deschamps stumbled during a side-by-side jump sequence, before Stellato-Dudek hit the ice on a throw triple loop.
But they weren’t overreacting to the result.
“We’re still going to make the Olympic team, there’s still a lot of positives from this and hopefully I can figure out whatever this bug is and get rid of it,” Stellato-Dudek said. “These things happen, and we’re really happy for Lia and Trennt.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 11, 2026.
Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press
