Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud have won their first medal at the World Figure Skating Championships.
The Canadian pair captured bronze on Thursday after shattering their personal best with 140.57 points in a beautiful Free Skate to music from the film “Gladiator.”
Michaud spoke to Quinte News shortly after from Czechia.
“A dream come true. It’s a goal to be a world medalist, and that’s happened now. So it just confirms that the process that we’re doing is the right process, and I’m just excited for more to come now.”
They finished with a combined overall score of 216.09, after placing third in Wednesday’s Short Program.
The bronze medal caps a banner season for Pereira and Michaud, who won their first national title in January, following it up with a personal best short skate and combined program at the Milan/Cortina games last month.
Just a few weeks ago, the duo had finished the Short Program, in the same position, sitting third ahead of the Free Skate at the Olympic games.
“We took the experience from that, took the confidence from how we had skated throughout the entire Olympics, putting ourselves in the position of being in third after the short, and just having that experience there has helped us with that here. That’s part of sport—you have to go and experience things to be able to get to the next level that you want to, and we were able to take the experience from the games and apply that today.”
They did finish eighth overall at the games, however, they were hungry for more.
Michaud says their medal is a victory for himself and Lia, but there are a lot of others who they share it with.
“We have had the lows together, the highs together, and that’s what our goal was out there today—was just to skate for ourselves and put out the performance that we wanted to for each other. But you know, there’s so many people that this whole medal encapsulates, and it’s hard to name them all, but it’s just been everybody that’s been a part of this journey and that’s led us to this moment.”
MORE PHOTOS FROM CZECHIA BELOW
(Flavio Valle / Skate Canada)
(Flavio Valle / Skate Canada)
(Flavio Valle / Skate Canada)
