Canada's Pereira, Michaud lead pairs competition at Grand Prix de France
Fellow Canadians Fournier Beaudry, Soerensen sit 2nd in ice dance
Canadian figure skaters are in position to leave France with some hardware.
Pairs team Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud set the pace in the short program at the Grand Prix de France on Friday, scoring 65.97 points to edge out Italy's Sara Conti and Niccoli Macii (65.31) for the lead.
Ice-dance duo Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Soerensen placed second in the rhythm dance, posting a score of 80.98 points.
Both teams will have the opportunity to win medals on Saturday during their free programs. Live coverage of the event resumes at 7:56 a.m. ET with the women's competition on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem.
Pereira, 19, of Milton, Ont., and Michaud, 27, of Belleville, Ont., are coming off a silver-medal performance in their first Grand Prix of the season at Skate America.
The duo, which joined forces last season, skated to the song 'River' by Bishop Briggs to earn a season-best mark.
WATCH | Pereira, Michaud lead pairs contest:
Fournier Beaudry, 31, and Soerensen, 34, are aiming to improve on their bronze-medal showing from the Finlandia Trophy in October. The Montreal natives were unable to defend their gold medal when Fournier Beaudry fell during the short program to leave them in seventh, though a winning free dance vaulted them onto the podium.
On Friday, however, the Canadians put together a relatively clean performance. Skating to a Top Gun theme, they successfully executed their twizzles, which previously hampered them, and put together a season-best score.
WATCH | Canadian duo 2nd after rhythm dance:
Having skated together since 2012, Fournier Beaudry and Soerensen placed ninth at their lone Olympic appearance at Beijing 2022.
Italy's Charlene Guignard and Maurice Fabbri lead the ice-dance competition with 86.62 points, while France's Evgeniia Lopareva and Geoffrey Brissaud are third at 76.95. Canadians Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac scored 70.58 points to sit in fifth.
The free dance begins Sunday at 10:06 a.m. ET.
Toronto's Stephen Gogolev was fifth in the men's short program with 86.14, well behind American phenom Ilia Malinin, who leads with 101.58 points.
Malinin sits ahead of Adam Siao Him Fa of France and Yuma Kagiyama of Japan.
WATCH | Malinin takes lead after short program:
Olympic silver medallist Kagiyama is taking part in his first Grand Prix in two years after recovering from an ankle injury.
Malinin produced a quad toe, triple axel and quad lutz-triple toe but fell during a step sequence.
"There's a couple of small mistakes, but it happens. I was just too excited from what I did, and I just got a little bit ahead of myself," he said. "It taught me that sometimes you just have to still be focused until the end of the program."
The Grand Prix de France is the third of six events in the ISU Grand Prix series. The best skaters qualify for the Grand Prix Final in Beijing from Dec. 7-10.
WATCH | Fournier Beaudry, Soerensen break down their most difficult element:
With files from The Associated Press
