Oct 28, 2026 · 1h 25m
France Grand Prix exposes skating’s style and scoring tensions
GP France Recap: Wakanda, Wisconsin
The recap connects production failures, competitive pressure, judging patterns, and increasingly uniform choreography across all four disciplines.
- 1Adam Siao Him Fa’s commanding free skate set the men’s event’s clearest competitive benchmark.
- 2Yuna Aoki and Lara Naki Gutmann showed how musicality and distinctive presentation can separate rising women’s skaters.
- 3The hosts argue that ice dance increasingly rewards one dramatic, emotionally intense aesthetic at the expense of variety.
Don't miss
The hosts call Yuna Aoki’s free skate one of the event’s best programs, praising its intentional movement, music, elements, and costume.
The brief
The hosts open by roasting France’s chaotic broadcast, where close-ups, fades, aerial shots, and missing full-body views obscure the skating itself.
Pairs provide an unexpected lift, with stronger layouts, more varied elements, and fewer predictable combinations suggesting the discipline may be regaining competitive depth.
Adam Siao Him Fa’s dominant victory anchors the men’s discussion, while Kao Miura’s rebound from a disastrous short program becomes a study in resilience and inconsistency.
Ice dance prompts the broadest criticism: many teams build similarly beautiful, mournful programs, making Christina and Anthony’s theatrical murder drama both compelling and familiar.
The women’s event closes on possibility, from Yuna Aoki’s meticulously composed masterclass to Lara Naki Gutmann’s rising star power and Ami Nakai’s joyful potential.
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