HALIFAX — Ice dancers Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier are gold medalists for the fifth consecutive time at Skate Canada International.

Gilles and Poirier of Toronto, Unionville, Ont., scored 128.40 points for their free dance routine to Annie Lennox’s cover of “A Whiter Shade of Pale” on Sunday.

After taking a comfortable lead in rhythm dance, the reigning world silver medalists finished with a total of 214.84.

Marjorie Lajoie of Boucherville, Que., and Zachary Lagha of Saint-Hubert, Que., (199.90) won silver and received a standing ovation for their captivating skate to “The Sound of Silence.”

France’s Evgenia Lopareva and Geoffrey Brissaud (194.25) won bronze while Alicia Fabbri of Terrebonne, Que., and Paul Ayer of Brossard, Que., finished eighth.

Earlier on Sunday, American figure skating star Ilia Malinin dominated the field and won the men’s gold medal.

The reigning world champion received a standing ovation for his vampire-themed free skate – which included a backflip – and won by more than 40 points to claim a Grand Prix title on consecutive weekends.

Malinin also won Skate America in Allen, Texas this past Sunday.

“I’m pretty happy with my skate today,” Malinin said. “It was very difficult to compete in these two Grands Prix in a row, and overall I am quite happy with my performance and how I was able to deal with it.”

The 19-year-old scored a total of 301.82. Japan’s Shun Sato (261.16) won silver while South Korea’s Junhwan Cha (260.31) won bronze.

Malinin’s only mistake was a quadruple loop during the fourth segment of his program.

“I’m a little disappointed with the loop,” he said. “But it is what it is. When it happened, I just had to put it aside for the moment and continue with the rest of the program.

“I always challenge myself. That’s my main competition, it’s just being able to fight from the start to the end of a program. Of course, my goal was to do this quad loop here too, but that didn’t happen.”

Aleksa Rakic ​​of Burnaby, British Columbia, scored 222.49 and was the top Canadian, finishing seventh among the 12 skaters.

“Getting this score is proof of my improvements,” Rakic ​​said. “Last year or two years ago I should have been absolutely perfect. Here I made mistakes and missed elements, that means I can score even more points.”

Toronto’s Stephen Gogolev (216.84) dropped to ninth after finishing fifth in the short program.

Roman Sadovsky of Vaughan, Ont., withdrew for medical reasons after finishing last in the short program on Saturday.

Canadians Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps repeated their pairs gold on Saturday, while three-time world champion Kaori Sakamoto of Japan won the women’s title.

The Grand Prix, the highest series in figure skating, consists of six events and a final. Next up is the French Grand Prix from November 1-3.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published October 27, 2024.

Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press