Gilles, Poirier lead Canada's figure skating team into Milan Cortina Olympics

GATINEAU — Ice dancers Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier will lead the Canadian Olympic figure skating team into the Milan Cortina Winter Games in February, carrying the country’s hopes of ending a medal drought.

Gilles and Poirier, silver medallists at the world championships in each of the past two seasons, will chase their first Olympic medal when competition begins at the Milano Ice Skating Arena.

The five-time Canadian champions head to their third Games as a duo in what is likely the final season of their careers.

“It feels like the cherry on top of our career,” said the 33-year-old Gilles, who thought the 2022 Beijing Games could have been their last. “We went year by year and it was like, ‘Can you do another year? Can you do another year?’

“I think it’s just taken the weight off of having to be successful the next four years and go into the Olympic Games with high hopes.”

Skate Canada announced the 12 athletes who will represent Canada in Italy at an event Sunday following the Canadian figure skating championships at Centre Slush Puppie.

Canada did not win a medal in 2022, falling short of a podium finish for the first time since 1984 after the country — then spearheaded by ice dance greats Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir — brought home four medals in 2018.

“It’s on your mind, but you can only do what the athletes are able to produce,” Skate Canada high-performance director Mike Slipchuk said. “We’ve had success in medals for many years, but our medals were coming from really the same athletes.

“We always want to get there to be in the medals, but I think we’re also going with some younger athletes that this is the start of their journey, and so if those medals don’t come to fruition now, I think we’re just on the cusp to keep building until 2030.”

Canada carries seven entries — three ice dance teams, two pairs and one each in men’s and women’s singles — and will compete in the team event. The selection was not based solely on the national championships, but on a body of work over the past couple seasons.

Slipchuk believes Gilles and Poirier, along with 2024 world pairs champions Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps, could return from Italy with hardware around their necks next month. He also says the Canadian team will push to be in the mix for a team event podium.

Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps are set to make their Olympic debuts at 42 and 34, respectively.

The duo’s oft-told story reads like a Hollywood script. Stellato-Dudek, a former budding singles star in the U.S., came out of retirement after 16 years away from the sport. She eventually moved to Canada to team up with Deschamps, who had cycled through eight partners before meeting his perfect match.

“It still doesn’t feel real to me quite yet,” she said after the Olympic announcement. “I don’t think it’ll feel real until I’m there.”

The veteran pair has had trouble sustaining success since striking gold two years ago in Montreal, where at 40 years old Stellato-Dudek became the oldest woman to win a world figure skating title.

Though Stellato-Dudek was dealing with a stomach bug, she and Deschamps finished second at the Canadian championships behind Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud, who claimed their first national title Saturday before also making the Olympic team Sunday.

Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha, and Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac join Gilles and Poirier in ice dance.

Stephen Gogolev earned the men’s singles entry, while Madeline Schizas heads to her second Olympics in the women’s event.

Gogolev, a 21-year-old from Toronto, captured his first senior national title Saturday, marking another chapter in a comeback season for the once-rising star.

“I can’t really put it into words right now, but this is probably the most emotional I’ve felt in my life,” said the soft-spoken Gogolev, whose recurring back injury kept him off the ice in recent seasons. “Even though I might not actually show it externally, this is probably the most amount of emotions I’ve experienced in a week.

“I’m just overjoyed right now, and it still feels a bit unreal.”

Schizas, meanwhile, heads to her second Olympics playing a key role in Canada’s fourth-place finish in the 2022 team event, placing second in both the women’s short program and free skate.

“I know I have it in me, right? It’s in there, I just have to let it out,” said the 22-year-old from Oakville, Ont., who won her fourth national title Sunday.

“That’s where my opportunity at a medal is and where I can best contribute to our team goals. We’re obviously going to need good performances all around, especially in the singles disciplines in the short program, so I think that’s really where my focus is.”

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

Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press

Gilles, Poirier lead Canada’s figure skating team into Milan Cortina Olympics

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