Zachary Lagha (born April 15, 1999) is a Canadian ice dancer. With his skating partner Marjorie Lajoie, he is the 2023 Four Continents bronze medalist, a three-time Grand Prix medalist, 2022 CS Nepela Memorial champion, 2022 CS Budapest Trophy champion, and a three-time Canadian national medalist. Lajoie and Lagha represented Canada at the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Lajoie and Lagha began their careers with a string of domestic titles in the youth ranks, including gold medals at the 2015 Canadian Novice Championships and 2015 Canada Winter Games, before making their international junior debut. They won four medals on the ISU Junior Grand Prix, three national junior titles, and became the second Canadian dance team to win the World Junior Championships in 2019. They represented Canada at the 2016 Winter Youth Olympics, finishing fourth in the dance event and winning a bronze medal in the team event.
Personal life
Lagha was born on April 15, 1999, in Greenfield Park, Quebec. His family is of Algerian Canadian heritage. His mother, Fella Hammoutene, is an accomplished pianist and encouraged her son to study piano as well. Lagha enters musical competitions in the skating off-season. In June 2018, he won a scholarship after winning the first round and getting to the final at the prestigious Canadian Music Competition.
Currently a student in contemporary dance at Concordia University, he identified coaching as his planned vocation following the end of his competitive career.
He is fluent in both English and French.
Skating career
Early years
Lagha began learning to skate in 2004. He formed an ice dance partnership with Marjorie Lajoie in 2011, coached by Julien Lalonde, Mylène Girard, and Valérie Allard in Saint-Hubert, Quebec.
After winning the national pre-novice title in the 2013–14 season, they moved up to the novice level for 2014–15. They won the silver medal at the Skate Canada Challenge, and then took the gold medal at the 2015 Canadian Championships. Lagha said of the achievement: "We worked very hard for this. It came with work. No work. No results." The following month they competed at the 2015 Canada Winter Games, winning the gold medal.
2015–2016 season: Junior debut
Following their novice title win, the two ended their partnership, later stating that they had different ideas at the time. Subsequently, Lagha transferred to train with Marie-France Dubreuil, who encouraged them to reunite in the summer of 2015. They then moved to train with Dubreuil, Patrice Lauzon, Romain Haguenauer, and Pascal Denis in Montreal, Quebec.
Making their junior international debut on the Junior Grand Prix, Lajoie/Lagha were seventh at the 2015 JGP Spain in Logroño in early October. Lajoie said that it "went super well, and I didn’t expect us to do this well."
In January 2016, Lajoie/Lagha were awarded the junior silver medal at the Canadian Championships after placing fourth in the short dance and second in the free. The following month, they placed fourth in the main competition at the 2016 Winter Youth Olympics in Hamar, Norway. Lajoie called it "a super fun competition," while Lagha thought "we didn't get the scores we wanted but what's most important is the public and ourselves were satisfied with the performance." Competing as members of Team Discovery, they won the bronze medal in the team event. In March, they ranked eleventh in the short dance, thirteenth in the free dance, and thirteenth overall at the 2016 World Junior Championships in Debrecen, Hungary.
2016–2017 season: First junior national title
Lajoie and Lagha were given two assignments on the 2016–17 Junior Grand Prix series, first coming fourth at the 2016 JGP Japan in Yokohama. They set a new personal best, and Lajoie said that they felt they were "on the right track." At the 2016 JGP Germany in Dresden, they finished third in the short dance segment, but dropped off the podium following the free dance, missing the bronze medal by less than a point. Lajoie admitted it was "unfortunate we couldn’t have placed higher," while vowing "there’s still a lot of work to do in order to increase our scores even more."
At the 2017 Skate Canada Challenge, Lajoie/Lagha broke the Canadian record in junior ice dance, held since 2005 by Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir. They went on to win the junior national title at the 2017 Canadian Championships.