Ice dancer Paul Poirier of Unionville is headed to his fourth Olympic Winter Games. Skate Canada and the Canadian Olympic Committee named Poirier and his partner, Piper Gilles of Toronto, to Canada’s figure skating team for the Milano Cortina 2026 Games on Sunday, Jan. 11, in Gatineau, Que.
The announcement came at the end of the Canadian National Skating Championships. The 12 skaters were chosen on international results and scores from the past two seasons, including the national championships, the Olympic committee said.
A third Games together
Gilles and Poirier will skate at their third Olympics as a team, after PyeongChang 2018 and Beijing 2022. Poirier also competed at Vancouver 2010 with a previous partner, which the Olympic committee said puts him among the few four-time Olympians expected to compete for Canada in Italy.
The pair are five-time Canadian champions and have won silver at the world championships in each of the past two seasons, The Canadian Press reported. They are four-time world championship medallists and are still chasing a first Olympic medal. Gilles returned to competition after overcoming ovarian cancer during the 2022-23 season.
Piper and I are honoured to be selected for our third Olympic Games alongside this incredible team! We’re so excited to represent Canada once more and hope to bring a medal home with us.
— Paul Poirier, ice dancer
The Canadian Press noted this is likely the duo’s final competitive season. Gilles, 33, said she had thought the 2022 Games could have been their last, and that the pair had decided year by year whether to keep going.
It feels like the cherry on top of our career.
— Piper Gilles, ice dancer
Medal hopes
Canada did not win a figure skating medal at the 2022 Games, the first time it missed the podium since 1980. Skate Canada high-performance director Mike Slipchuk believes Gilles and Poirier, along with pairs skaters Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps, could come home with medals, The Canadian Press reported.
Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha, and Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac, join Gilles and Poirier in ice dance. The team also includes Stephen Gogolev in men’s singles, Madeline Schizas in women’s singles, and the pairs teams of Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps, and Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud. All nominations are subject to approval by the Canadian Olympic Committee’s team selection committee.
Figure skating at the Games begins Feb. 6, before the opening ceremony, with the first segments of the team event, including the ice dance rhythm dance. The competition ends Feb. 19 at the Milano Ice Skating Arena.
