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By Daniel Rainbird

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HALIFAX — After winning silver at the World Championships last March, Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier are off to a good start in their preparation for the following season.

So far, it’s paying off for Canada’s best ice dancers.

Gilles and Poirier scored a total of 214.84 points in their first event of the season to win a fifth consecutive gold medal at Skate Canada International on Sunday.

“It made a big difference just in terms of our confidence,” Gilles said. “It’s really difficult to be able to come to this event and do it as your first competition.

“There are a lot of nerves, but we didn’t really have them this week.”

The two 32-year-olds have been deciding their futures year after year since competing in the 2022 Olympics. This season, they return with a commitment to the 2026 Games – and the feeling that they still have a lot left to give.

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“We had spent the first two seasons of the quad feeling really unsure, as we went into our hiatus, of what we wanted to do and whether or not we wanted to continue,” Poirier said. “This year it was a little easier to make that decision, and so we started doing our music research earlier so that when we got back on the ice, we were ready. We were prepared. We felt organized.

“We wanted to go out and feel really strong as we went into our first competition.”

And that’s what they did. Gilles and Poirier opened the weekend at the Scotiabank Center 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 “essence of tango” routine to Annie Lennox’s cover of “A Whiter Shade of Pale.”

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“We’re really happy with how this week went,” Poirier said. “We really trusted our training every step of the way, didn’t get ahead of ourselves and were able to run two really comfortable and strong programs that we felt set us up well for the rest of the season. “

Marjorie Lajoie of Boucherville, Que., and Zachary Lagha of Saint-Hubert, Que., (199.90 points) won silver while Frenchmen Evgenia Lopareva and Geoffrey Brissaud (194.25) won bronze .

Gilles and Poirier joined former world champions Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz as the only ice dancers to win five consecutive Skate Canada titles.

“They were a great example of what ice dancing could be in Canada. They started the legacy of all these incredible teams that were chasing them… We are very honored to be part of this legend,” said Gilles, before pointing to Lajoie and Lagha during the press conference and adding: “J I hope they continue after them. we left.

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Lajoie and Lagha may have finished second, but they fought their way to a standing ovation for their captivating skate to “The Sound of Silence.”

The 2019 world junior champions bounced back from a rhythmic dance during which Lagha unexpectedly fell to the ice.

“We are very happy,” Lagha said. “It wasn’t… actually, I can’t say it wasn’t easy. It was pretty easy actually.

“I had a good conversation with my psychologist. He told me that when you think about things like that, that’s where you make mistakes. When you drive the car, you have to look ahead at the road, the outside points, you can’t concentrate on where you put your foot.

Earlier Sunday, American 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.

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

“I’m pretty happy with my skating 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 301.82 points in total. Japan’s Shun Sato (261.16) won silver while South Korea’s Junhwan Cha (260.31) won bronze.

The only mistake in Malinin’s performance came during the fourth segment, where he failed to complete a quadruple loop.

“I’m a little disappointed with the loop,” he said. “But that’s how it is. When this 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 biggest competition is just being able to fight through a program from start to finish.

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

“There’s proof in my improvements, getting this score,” Rakic ​​said. “Last year or two years ago I should have been absolutely perfect. Here I made some mistakes and missed elements, this means I can score even more points.

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.

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