Canada's Fournier Beaudry, Soerensen in medal position at Grand Prix de France

Canada's Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Soerensen are in position to leave France with some hardware.

The ice-dance duo placed second in the rhythm dance at the Grand Prix de France on Friday, posting a score of 80.98 points.

Italy's Charlene Guignard and Maurice Fabbri lead the 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.

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.

WATCH | Canadian duo 2nd after rhythm dance:

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.

Having skated together since 2012, Fournier Beaudry and Soerensen placed ninth at their lone Olympic appearance at Beijing 2022.

The free dance begins Sunday at 10:06 a.m. ET.

Live coverage of the Grand Prix de France continues with the men's short program now followed by the pairs short program at 1:41 p.m. ET on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem.

WATCH | Fournier Beaudry, Soerensen break down their most difficult element: