Canada’s Gilles, Poirier seventh in what might have been final Olympic appearance

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This article was published 12/02/2022 (1046 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BEIJING – Piper Gilles fought back tears as she tried to explain how an Olympic ice dance lift went horribly wrong.

Longtime partner Paul Poirier said to her gently: “You were amazing.”

In what was likely their Olympic finale, Canada’s Gilles and Poirier were seventh in ice dance after a botched lift had Gilles sobbing in the aptly named “kiss and cry” where skaters await their marks.

Skating to a cover by The Beatles melodic “The Long and Winding Road,” by British indie group Govardo, the Canadians scored 204.78.

On the rotational lift — gorgeous when executed properly — Gilles flips up backwards over Poirier. Her foot is supposed to land on Poirier’s leg, with her other leg stretching skyward. But in every ice dancer’s nightmare, she wound up crouched on one knee.

“The flip just went a little bit too far, so where I landed I was on my heel and . . . I don’t have enough pressure to push off of the blade, it wants to slip,” Gilles explained. “So at that point we just kind of tried to hold on to it. . . it was just try to hold it as much as we can, try to earn as much points as we can. And then just fight for it.”

France’s Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, who were runners-up to Canada’s Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, won gold with 226.98, earning a standing ovation from all the national teams watching in Capital Indoor Stadium.

Russia’s world champions Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov were second (220.51), while Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue of the U.S. won bronze (218.02).

Gilles and Poirier chose “The Long and Winding Road” this season to reflect their roller-coaster journey to Beijing. Poirier, from Unionville, Ont., rebounded from a severely broken ankle in 2014, only to narrowly miss qualifying with Gilles for the 2014 Games. At the ’18 Olympics, Gilles’ mom Bonnie was in the late stages of brain cancer — or glioblastoma, the same cancer that killed Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie. Bonnie died later that year. Gilles, from Toronto, has since become a spokesperson for brain cancer.

If Monday was indeed their final Olympics, it certainly wasn’t the storybook ending they’d hoped to write.

But the two, dressed in baby pink and blue ombre costumes, were proud of how well they fought back from their mishap.

“That’s what every athlete is coming here to the Olympics to do – to fight for every moment and be their best,” Gilles said. “That’s what we did today. We were very resilient. And we should be very proud of that.”

“Sport, you can look at it like, ‘Well, they didn’t win,'” she added. “But it’s all about the work that you’ve done to get to those moments and people forget about that. We can just be so proud of what we’ve done and be blessed that we’ve at an Olympics Games.”

They could still capture a medal in the team event, pending the decision on the Russian team. Canada was fourth in the team event, but Russia, who was first, could be disqualified after it was revealed that 15-year-old superstar Kamila Valieva tested positive for a banned heart drug.

Gilles and Poirier plan to compete in the world championships next month in Montpellier, France, and then decide on their future.

“I feel like our story has always been an open-ended story and I think it really depends on what we want to do next. Do we feel creative enough to keep going? Where do we want to be in life?” Gilles said.

Of one thing they’re sure. They’ll be friends for life.

“We’ve done everything together, we’ve gone through everything together, and I think over time that bond has just grown and deepened,” said Poirier, who teamed up with Gilles in 2011. “That’s not something either of us anticipates changing. No matter what, no matter where our career goes next.”

Canada’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Soerensen were ninth. Skating to Hans Zimmers’ “Gladiator,” the duo who previously competed for Denmark scored 192.35. While Beaudry is from Montreal, Soerensen is from Copenhagen, but she couldn’t get her Danish citizenship in time to compete at the 2018 Olympics, and Denmark released the two later that year so they’d be eligible to compete for Canada.

Canadians Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha, world junior champions in 2019, were 13th.

Papadakis and Cizeron, who skated to “Elegie” by French composer Gabriel Faure, broke their own world record en route to gold. The two are coached by Canadians Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon — Virtue and Moir’s former coaches — at the Ice Academy in Montreal.

“I think we don’t believe it yet. Honestly it feels completely unreal,” Papadakis said. “We have been waiting for this. This is the medal that we wanted. My brain doesn’t understand it.”

The free dance had plenty of drama, with Broadway and movie theme music from “The Lion King” to “Gladiator” to “Moulin Rouge,” the music that Virtue and Moir skated to en route to gold four years ago. Italians Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabri skated to music from “Atonement,” with the clackety-clack sound of an old typewriter to start the program. There was even some (mock) sword play in Spanish couple Olivia Smart and Adrian Diaz’s skate to “The Mask of Zorro.”

Next up is the women’s singles short programs on Tuesday. Madeline Schizas, who turned 19 on Monday, is Canada’s lone entry.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 14, 2022.