Canada’s Gilles, Poirier win bronze in ice dance at Milan Cortina Olympics

MILAN – Piper Gilles covered her mouth in disbelief. Paul Poirier, overcome with emotion, broke down sobbing.

The veteran Canadian ice dancers had waited 15 years for a moment like this. There were stretches, even just months ago, when they wondered if it would ever arrive.

There had been loss, health scares, doubts about whether to keep going. At times they thought the judging was stacked against them.

But with a poignant, heart-stirring skate on Wednesday night, Gilles and Poirier finally captured their long-awaited Olympic medal.

“That’s what it takes to have an Olympic moment like that,” Gilles said, still beaming. “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.”

Gilles and Poirier earned bronze at the Milan Cortina Games, 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, Toronto’s Gilles and Poirier of Unionville, Ont., shattered their season’s best with 131.56 points in the free dance, bringing their total to 217.74 to pull ahead of challengers Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson of Great Britain and Charlène Guignard and Marco Fabbri of host Italy.

The Canadians each wept tears of joy at centre ice at Milano Ice Skating Arena, Gilles holding Poirier’s crumpled face in her palms with a giant smile, as the misty-eyed crowd with a smattering of Canadian flags erupted at the end of their performance.

“Seeing Paul get super emotional, that doesn’t happen often,” Gilles said. “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.”

When the announced score confirmed their place on the podium, Gilles then jumped up from her seat in the kiss-and-cry while Poirier banged his hands on the bench in euphoria.

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.

Skating partners for 15 years, Gilles and Poirier, both 34, were four-time world championship medallists but had not reached the podium in two previous Olympics together.

“We have really allowed ourselves to be vulnerable today, and say, ‘This is who we are. This is what we do. Here you go,’” Poirier said. “It’s been such a rewarding journey, not necessarily rewarding in all the ways that we anticipated, but that’s what makes life so beautiful. That’s what makes sports so beautiful, is it takes you on a road you can’t anticipate, and you live the fullness of humanity through sport all the time.”

What followed was a battle for gold to remember.

Former Canadian skater Laurence Fournier Beaudry – a 32-year-old from Montreal – and Guillaume Cizeron topped the podium for France despite a few errors, edging out three-time reigning world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States by the finest of margins.

Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron finished with a total of 225.82, gliding across the ice in a powerful and stunning skate to music from “The Whale,” though Cizeron made a mistake on his twizzles.

Nearly unbeatable until the French team arrived on the scene, Chock and Bates settled for silver with 224.39, tears streaming down their faces as they moved from interview to interview.

The gold medal for the French team capped a meteoric rise after they announced their partnership some 11 months ago amid controversy.

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. Cizeron, meanwhile, was searching for a new partner after splitting with 2022 Olympic gold medal teammate Gabriella Papadakis, who described him as controlling in her recent memoir.

“It’s been quite a challenge that we set out to do,” he said. “From the beginning we tried to create a bubble where we really supported each other through everything, and we’ve been through some incredibly hard moments.”

Gilles and Poirier, meanwhile, joined forces back in 2011. They finished eighth at the 2018 Olympics and a disappointing seventh in 2022, a year after winning their first world bronze medal.

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.

“Three years ago, when I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, I don’t think I envisioned this moment,” Gilles said. “That’s what’s so amazing about who Paul and I are.

“We are people first, athletes second. It is a great example for anybody going through any kind of dark time, mental health or health issues, that you can do hard things, no matter what.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 11, 2026.