Gilles, Poirier win 5th straight ice dance title at Skate Canada International
CBC
After winning world championship silver last March, Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier got a jump-start on their preparation for the following season.
So far, it's paying off for Canada's top ice dancers.
Gilles and Poirier scored 214.84 total points in their first event of the season to win a fifth straight gold medal at Skate Canada International on Sunday.
"It made a lot of difference just in our confidence," Gilles said. "It's really tricky to be able to come to this event and have it be your first competition.
"There's a lot of nerves, but we didn't really have them this week."
The two 32-year-olds have been deciding their future one year at a time since competing at the 2022 Olympics. This season, they're back with a commitment through the 2026 Games — and a feeling that they still have a lot left to give.
WATCH | Gilles, Poirier skate to gold:
WATCH | Gilles, Poirier 'really proud' of win:
"We had spent the first two seasons of the quad feeling really unsure as we went into our break about what we wanted to do and whether or not we wanted to continue," Poirier said. "This year it was a little bit easier to make that decision, and so we started doing our music research earlier so that when we got back on to the ice we were ready. We were prepared. We felt organized.
"We wanted to come out and feel really strong as we went into our first competition."
And so they did. Gilles and Poirier opened the weekend at Scotiabank Centre with a comfortable lead after their energetic rhythm dance to The Beach Boys.
On Sunday, they followed up with the highest score in the free dance, performing a challenging "tango-essence" routine set to Annie Lennox's cover of "A Whiter Shade of Pale."
"We're really pleased with how this week has gone," Poirier said. "We really trusted our training every step of the way, we didn't get ahead of ourselves and were able to perform two really comfortable, solid programs that we feel set us up well for the rest of the season."
WATCH | Lajoie, Lagha capture ice dance silver:
