Hannah Lim and Zachary Lagha, or ‘LiLa’ which, after several suggestions, is a nickname they approve of, are one of the new ice dance teams that has emerged after the wave of partnership break-ups across both pairs and ice dance at the end of the 2025/26 season.
In early March, after 15 years of skating together, Lagha announced his split from Marjorie Lajoie. Lim announced her split from Ye Quan, after 7 years of partnership, in April.
Lim said that her split with Quan was known within the school when Lagha reached out. “He texted me [to ask] if we could have a call. I was like ‘I wonder what this is about’ but I didn’t know what’s going on so I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but we chatted for a bit and then went through the process of possibly trying out together.”
The team found the transition into skating with each other very smooth. Lim admitted, “I thought it would take longer to get used to it, but it took like a week to get used to it and then it felt normal.” Lagha noted that their similar dance-style background worked in their favour. “I think [any] challenges will be seeing each other under stress or during run-throughs when cardio picks up. Stuff like that, will definitely be a challenge that we’ll need to overcome but we’ll take it as it comes.”
Both speak highly about each other’s worth ethic. “I thought I was working hard and then the first two weeks [Hannah] broke me. It was still very fun. She’s open minded too. It’s so fun to go to training every morning, it’s like serious but we can have fun,” Lagha said.
Lim added “We can go back and forth with ideas on the ice very easily. We also have very similar ways of dancing and moving and music styles, we can talk on and off the ice too about that.”
In choosing to represent Canada, the team will have to sit out for a year due to Lim representing Korea within the past 12 months. During this quarantine period, they can still compete in domestic events and are currently listed to debut at Championnats québécois d’été in August.
On the decision, Lim said, “It was difficult because Korea felt like my home for a bit and my parents are both Korean. I represented them most of my ice dance career so that’s what I’m really used to. The fans and the federation were everything to me, so I was really going back and forth. I have both passports so I could equally decide either but there’s not too many Korean guys or guys that would switch to Korea for me, and I already did that with Ye. I thought, if I’m skating with Zach – he’s Canadian, it seemed like the easiest route, the only thing was taking a year off.”
With no international events, but many friends around them who will be flying all over the world, Lim said, “It’s going to be hard [to stay motivated]. I’m not gonna lie, I’m a jealous person, so I’ll be jealous and frustrated, but we can talk about it and definitely channel that energy into bettering ourselves at home.”
“We’re [training] like an international season. We don’t want to be in the mindset that ‘we’re not going international so we can chill’. It’s just as important to showcase our stuff now.”
The pair are ambitious and looking towards Canadian Nationals as their goal for the season. “We’re looking to have our best performance at Nationals, maybe a podium or somewhere around the top. We know there’s a lot of teams now in Canada. Long term would be Worlds and Olympics, and climbing our way up.”
With a new season comes new programs. Whilst the team want to keep their music choices quiet for a bit longer, they did say that they’ve gone down a more classical path – which they both love.
“We’re really excited about the pattern dance coming back. With the Golden Waltz, everyone is having their own take. I’ve seen Latin, Polka, Jazz, and Tango waltzes. We wanted to do our own take on it which is really showcasing the waltz, like ‘here is our waltz, we want you to see it, we’re not hiding it.”
If you can’t find Hannah Lim and Zak Lagha at competitions, you’ll be seeing them on social media. Lim, who started uploading to her YouTube channel 3 years ago, has found a love for short-form videos. Since the Olympics, her follower counts have increased by around 2500% across Instagram and TikTok.
“I love filming what I do in a day, but I find the little trends and more fun, silly things are more my vibe. I’m always looking at little things we can do together and I’ll ask if we can do this TikTok together and he’ll say of course.”
How does Zak feel about it? “If I do it with her, it’s okay.”
