MILAN – After a poignant, heart-stirring skate, Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier have captured their long-awaited Olympic medal.
The veteran Canadian ice dancers earned bronze at the Milan Cortina Games on Wednesday night, securing a final piece to the puzzle in what is likely the final season of their decorated careers.
Skating to Govardo’s cover of “Vincent” by Don McLean, Gilles and Poirier shattered their season’s best with 131.56 points in the free dance, bringing their total to 217.74.
Toronto’s Gilles and Poirier, of Unionville, Ont., each broke down in tears of joy as the misty-eyed crowd, with a smattering of Canadian flags, erupted at the end of their performance.
Gilles then jumped up from her seat in the kiss-and-cry, while Poirier fist-pumped when the announced score confirmed their place on the podium.
“We just left everything out on that table, and to be able to soak in that moment and the energy from the crowd and our family members and friends that were there, it was so beautiful,” Gilles said. “Seeing Paul get super emotional, that doesn’t happen often. But again, that’s what it takes to have an Olympic moment like that.
“We let it all out, and to be able to finish like that, we’re just so proud. Unbelievably proud of what we’ve accomplished.”
Former Canadian skater Laurence Fournier Beaudry, a 32-year-old from Montreal, and Guillaume Cizeron won gold for France with a total of 225.82, gliding across the ice in a powerful and stunning skate to music from “The Whale.”
Three-time reigning world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States claimed silver with 224.39 after wowing the audience with a strong American contingent to “Paint It Black” by Ramin Djawadi.
Gilles and Poirier, skating partners for 15 years, are four-time world championship medallists but had not reached the podium in two previous Olympics together.
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The bronze marks Canada’s fourth medal of these Games — and its first in figure skating since bringing home four from the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Before Gilles and Poirier took the ice, Great Britain’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson, who the Canadians led by a narrow 0.71 points after Monday’s rhythm dance, fell from fourth to seventh after Fear stepped out of her twizzles.
Charlène Guignard and Marco Fabbri of host Italy finished fourth, 8.16 points behind Gilles and Poirier.
Marjorie Lajoie of Boucherville, Que., and Zachary Lagha of St-Hubert, Que., ended the competition in 10th (199.80). The husband-wife duo of Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac, from Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, Que., were 14th (187.18).
Gilles and Poirier, both 34, joined forces in 2011. They finished eighth at the 2018 Olympics and a disappointing seventh in 2022, a year after winning their first world bronze medal.
The Canadians thought the 2022 Olympics might be their last, but returned one year at a time through the next quadrennial with a deeper commitment to their playful yet intricate skating style.
The gold medal for Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron, meanwhile, caps a meteoric rise after the duo announced their partnership some 11 months ago under complicated circumstances.
Fournier Beaudry was at a crossroads after her boyfriend and former skating partner Nikolaj Sørensen was suspended a minimum of six years following a sexual assault allegation that came to light in 2024. The sanction was overturned on jurisdictional grounds, though the case remains under appeal.
Cizeron was searching for a new partner after splitting with Gabriella Papadakis. The duo won Olympic gold in 2022, but Cizeron recently accused Papadakis of launching a “smear campaign” in her memoir “So as Not to Disappear,” in which she described him as controlling and manipulative.
As for Gilles and Poirier, a spot on the podium seemed all but guaranteed earlier this season when their scores fell well short of their personal bests.
The Canadians held a 0.34-point edge over Fear and Gibson after the rhythm dance at the Grand Prix Final in December, only for the Brits to knock them off the podium by a razor-thin 0.06 following the free skate.
A crestfallen Gilles, as captured in the Netflix docuseries “Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing,” walked the corridors beneath Aichi International Arena in Nagoya, Japan, lamenting that they had “no supporters” and telling Poirier, “It feels like it’s for nothing this year.”
“A lot of moments throughout this season, it kind of felt like we were taking on a giant in a lot of ways,” Poirier said. “After the Grand Prix Final, we had to make a conscious decision each day to believe in ourselves and to believe that what we wanted was possible.
“We had to keep feeding ourselves that belief every single day, even when it didn’t really feel real, but I think that it is what allowed us to have a skate like that today at the Olympics.”
The choice to skate to “Vincent” is layered with meaning for Gilles and Poirier. They revived a reimagined version of the program first performed seven years ago, a highly emotional routine that helped them emerge from the long shadow of Canadian sweethearts Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir.
For Gilles, who glides across the ice in an ethereal Starry Night dress, the piece is deeply personal, having created the choreography while her late mother, Bonnie Gilles, was battling late-stage brain cancer.
It was one of a multitude of challenges in a career the duo often describes as a journey. Years later, Piper Gilles faced a cancer scare during the 2022-23 season, as doctors removed an ovary and her appendix after discovering a tumour.
“I love my mom, and I know she was there with me,” Gilles said. “I felt it when the sun came up today.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 11, 2026.