Gold on Gold: Lajoie & Lagha Cheer thread!

They really held it together so well. You could tell they were a bit nervous, but they pushed through and I think this skate will do wonders for their confidence going into the IE.

Also did anyone manage to catch what their quote/skater’s message on the big screen was this time?
 
As suspected re music changes
www.tsn.ca

Figure skaters face music-rights clearance issues at Olympics

Music-rights issues have become more common since 2014, when the International Skating Union loosened its rules to allow songs with lyrics, which unlike classical music doesn’t often fall in the public domain.
www.tsn.ca www.tsn.ca
Meanwhile, fellow ice dancers Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha removed “Thunderstruck” and “Are You Ready” by AC/DC from their rhythm dance to avoid a copyright violation.

“It doesn’t matter like how I feel, I just have to adapt,” the blunt and dry-humoured Lagha said. “We have no choice. So, it sucks, that’s it.

“But that’s OK, we’ll manage. There is plenty of music to skate to.”

Lajoie said the change may have been a blessing in disguise.

“It was really repetitive, the ‘Thunderstruck’ song,” she said of the classic rock track. “We really liked it, it was really fun. But when we changed it, we were like, oh OK, there’s other layers that we can use.”
Click to expand...
 
Unfortunate hiccup on the twizzles today, but they did a great job maintaining the performance level all the way through, and the crowd clearly enjoyed it. They’ll skate in the second-to-last group on Wednesday!

https://twitter.com/x/status/2020972079101648952
https://twitter.com/x/status/2021001198866727138

Also a couple of pre-departure media pieces about them were published yesterday, one article about Zach from Radio Canada International and another video feature from TVA:

ici.radio-canada.ca

[Reportage] Le patineur Zachary Lagha à Milan-Cortina | RCI

Le jeune patineur artistique représente le Canada dans les compétitions de danse sur glace aux Jeux olympiques d'hiver de 2026, qui se déroulent en Italie.
ici.radio-canada.ca ici.radio-canada.ca
 
I've noticed their twizzles in the RD have been a bit off this season :') Though I still appreciate them being one of the few ones who still do catchfoot twizzles! Very rare these days, I hope they have a better outing in the free. Glad to see them still in the top 10 despite the error and some.....questionable judging.
 
almiranara said:
I've noticed their twizzles in the RD have been a bit off this season :') Though I still appreciate them being one of the few ones who still do catchfoot twizzles! Very rare these days, I hope they have a better outing in the free. Glad to see them still in the top 10 despite the error and some.....questionable judging.
Click to expand...
The twizzles looked great in the practices I was able to catch but competition is different from practice (like these were sooo good). FWIW I noticed they changed it so that Marjorie is now the one twizzling(?) closest to the judges instead of Zach, so obviously they're trying to do something about it.

Yeah, the GBR judge was doing a lot there...
 
ginsengtea said:
Really nice article about Marjorie's family coming to support them in Milan. They call themselves the LALA army 😭
ici.radio-canada.ca

Les patineurs Lajoie et Lagha soutenus par l’armée des LALA

Les proches des patineurs artistiques Marjorie Lajoie et Zachary Lagha ont pris d'assaut l'Aréna de patinage de Milan, à leur plus grand plaisir.
ici.radio-canada.ca ici.radio-canada.ca
Click to expand...
Yes! They had custom LaLa Army pins made!! Other fans I ran into in the subway sitting near them got the pins!! And then we ran into their families and even Marjorie and Zach at the Canada house unofficial bar afterwards and my gf got a LaLa Army pin!!
 
Aaron MB Fan said:
Yes! They had custom LaLa Army pins made!! Other fans I ran into in the subway sitting near them got the pins!! And then we ran into their families and even Marjorie and Zach at the Canada house unofficial bar afterwards and my gf got a LaLa Army pin!!
Click to expand...
That’s so cool omg 😭 LaLa Army pins are such a cute idea, amazing that you got to meet them!
 
Marta24 said:
Lajoie/Lagha have Romain Haguenauer listed as a former coach in their ISU bio. I found that interesting. He has been with them in the KnC since their junior days. Maybe it means they won't be working with him anymore in the future, even though they are staying with IAM?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
As suspected but it’s official now. I’m curious when the shift actually happened, since Romain choreographed their RD this season and likely their scrapped Bach FD as well. It’s always seemed to me like Romain is the main coach for the European teams, while Marie-France and Patrice tend to focus more on the North American teams, so in that sense it tracks. Curious to see what Marie-France programs will look like on them now.
 
ginsengtea said:
As suspected but it’s official now. I’m curious when the shift actually happened, since Romain choreographed their RD this season and likely their scrapped Bach FD as well. It’s always seemed to me like Romain is the main coach for the European teams, while Marie-France and Patrice tend to focus more on the North American teams, so in that sense it tracks. Curious to see what Marie-France programs will look like on them now.
Click to expand...
I wonder what's the connection between the change and their 'feeling alone' comment. Re: Programs, wasn't their last Marie-France program Bohemian Rhapsody? It was not exactly a good program for them lol (and they admitted they hated watching themselves skating to it), but it was also 6 years ago, and in a way it helped them (especially Zach) project more.
 
ginsengtea said:
As suspected but it’s official now. I’m curious when the shift actually happened, since Romain choreographed their RD this season and likely their scrapped Bach FD as well. It’s always seemed to me like Romain is the main coach for the European teams, while Marie-France and Patrice tend to focus more on the North American teams, so in that sense it tracks. Curious to see what Marie-France programs will look like on them now.
Click to expand...
I was checking out wiki and all their programs throughout their career seem to be Romain programs.

Pure speculation on my part but I suspect conversations were had during or following SC high performance camp.
My gut is that when the original FD music was too $$$ and scrapped and they moved to Bach that Romain was just too busy with his other teams and these two were stranded on an island all alone. I suspect this is when MF and Patrice stepped in and took over and at that point the best option was to dust off White Crow. THat there just wasn't time to create a brand new FD. And no time to change the RD for certain.

When you look at the ISU bios for IAM teams to me it appears there are three tiers. The top tier of teams only list three coaches: Romain, MF or Patrice. In that top tier that all seem to have Romain as their #1 and all their programs choreographed by Romain are FB/C, F/G, SD, L/B. And closely following them but not with Romain as their main are R/A and C/B.

I would throw D/S and LaLa into tier 2 when it comes to priority while suspecting D/S got more attention.
Davis/Smolkin (MF, Romain, Patrice, Pascal Denis, Josee Piche) Romain choreographer + Sam
LaLa (MF, Pascal Denis, Patrice, Josee Piche) : programs this year by Romain

It's interesting to me that nowhere on wiki does it appear Sam Chouinard ever worked with LaLa. THat may be incorrect but he is listed a lot for the other teams.

I have wanted them away from Romain for some time and I think these two (aside from their obviously skating talent) have the potential to be really versatile. It's crazy, when you think about it, how 4 years ago Scott Moir predicted they would be a major factor in 2026. They have been so mismanaged. But it seems they and SC and MF and Patrice have finally realised that so fingers crossed for next season.
 
marbri said:
It's interesting to me that nowhere on wiki does it appear Sam Chouinard ever worked with LaLa. THat may be incorrect but he is listed a lot for the other teams.
Click to expand...
Sam worked with them for their Cha Cha Slide RD. If you go to Marjorie's Instagram highlights about skating, there's a selfie of the three of them from the 2022 off-season. I guess he was just never credited?
 
Hi! Just wanted to say that I hope the coaching shift helps LaLa fulfill their potential! It seems to me that they've been stuck in a mix of "waiting your turn" as second Canadian dance team and perhaps not a top priority of their coaches. And yes, the first time I saw them I thought that they're crazy talented and bound to go to the very top. There should be a way to unleash all that potential.
 
almiranara said:
Sam worked with them for their Cha Cha Slide RD. If you go to Marjorie's Instagram highlights about skating, there's a selfie of the three of them from the 2022 off-season. I guess he was just never credited?
Click to expand...
And that was a great RD for them!
 
I'm sure there was a reason, but it's really surprising to me that Bach was scrapped over rights issues. Obviously the music is in the public domain, but the individual performance is subject to copyright, but it surprises me that simply switching to another performance wasn't the first option.
 
Theatregirl1122 said:
I'm sure there was a reason, but it's really surprising to me that Bach was scrapped over rights issues. Obviously the music is in the public domain, but the individual performance is subject to copyright, but it surprises me that simply switching to another performance wasn't the first option.
Click to expand...
I don’t think Bach was scrapped because of music rights. They said at one point there was another music choice before Bach that they loved but couldn’t use because the rights were too expensive. I’ve always assumed the Bach FD was dropped because of negative feedback they received at High Performance Camp. The timing lines up, since about a week after HPC they withdrew from Nepela ostensibly to work on reviving White Crow.
 
Wow! They've had quite a tumultuous season with all of these changes. I'm sad that we don't know the original FD music and will probably never get to see the Bach FD.
 
shan said:
Wow! They've had quite a tumultuous season with all of these changes. I'm sad that we don't know the original FD music and will probably never get to see the Bach FD.
Click to expand...
Knowing how strict Skate Canada is about music rights I can't help but wonder if they were under another federation they could have used it. SC managed to clear Lion King for Maddie Schizas, so it does make you question whether they could have found a way to make it work here too. On paper Bach always sounded interesting to me because I immediately think of Klimova/Ponomarenko's iconic Air on the G String/Toccata & Fugue FD. It was from a different era of ice dance, so I would have liked to see their take on it. It's been a long time since they've skated to classical music like that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 7 (members: 0, guests: 7)

Similar threads

E
Are Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps Out of Medal Contention in Italy?
Replies
21
Views
2K
Desperado
Desperado
V
Petr Gumennik Cheer thread
Replies
4
Views
3K
Vash01
V
Wyliefan
Ava Marie Ziegler Cheer Thread: Leveling Up
Replies
14
Views
4K
Wyliefan
Wyliefan
H
2030 Olympic Team Event Speculation 2026 Edition
Replies
7
Views
464
tangerine dream
tangerine dream
Sylvia
Lindsey Vonn plans to compete despite a ruptured ACL
Replies
14
Views
844
once_upon
once_upon
Back
Top
Do Not Sell My Personal Information