Worlds 2024: 'We gave everything that we could'
With a spectacular free dance that won the day, Canada's Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier took another step toward the top of the podium with a silver medal finish in Montreal.
MONTREAL — Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier’s quest to be the best in the world took another rather significant step Saturday afternoon at the Bell Centre. Now we’ll wait and wonder whether they’ll stick around for another year or two to finish the job.
Let’s just say they’ve got one hell of an incentive to keep their careers going. In all seriousness, how could they possibly stop now?
Gilles and Poirier scored their biggest triumph yet at the World Figure Skating Championships on Saturday, winning the free dance with their majestic “Wuthering Heights” program, which is nothing short of a masterpiece. While it wasn’t enough to propel the Canadians to a world title, it did slide them into the silver medal position behind Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who held on by 2.52 points to win their second straight global crown. Gilles and Poirier won the free with 133.17 points, by a 1.05 margin.
“I think just winning the free showed us that we’re capable of being on top of the podium at the World Championships. Right now it’s hard to really digest what’s next and how to get to that next step,” the 32-year-old Gilles said when asked if Saturday’s result might be enough to extend their careers. “I think right now we’re just going to enjoy the show skating and keep everybody on their toes because that’s what we love to do. Keep everybody guessing.”
Her partner sounded enthused about chasing that top step on the podium.
“It’s really exciting. It’s a testament to the effort and the time that we put in to try to get to this level of competition,” Poirier, 32, said of winning the free dance. “We’re always seeking to better ourselves. Kind of taking these last few little steps to be the best in the world are so difficult and it’s so hard to know where to go. But these small victories are so rewarding still and they’re teaching us that we’re on the right track and that our efforts are leading us to where we want to be and that’s really exciting.”
While they weren’t quite ready to declare Saturday’s free dance their best of the season, it was clear by the finish that Gilles and Poirier poured every available ounce into the program. Let’s just say their standing ovation was extremely well earned.
“There were moments that we improved on and some that were a little bit, like, hoo-boy, a little stiff in. We got really, really excited to perform here today. But I think the training that we did going into this competition led us to have that performance today,” said Gilles. “Whether it was the best we felt at the end — nothing about that program was bad — but I think we just let that training that we did the last couple of weeks, the grind, we let that program sail.
“That was the strongest that we felt at the end of that program. We gave everything that we could and I think that showed today.”
“Wuthering Heights” has turned out to be a terrific vehicle for the Canadians all season, not that they were convinced it would turn out that way when the music choice was first made.
“I don’t think you ever know (if it’s the right choice). That’s part of it, the big gamble, the jump you take off the cliff at the beginning of every season,” admitted Poirier. “Some programs feel, when you’re creating them, that they’re so perfect, exactly how you want them, then they kind of stagnate and don’t go how you want them to. And other programs surprise you, they grow in magical, fun ways. And that’s all part of it too.
“We’ve learned over the years that some programs don’t pan out exactly how we want and other programs really carry us and it’s not like there’s a magic formula and you know which ones are going to work. You just try your best every year to create what you want to do and put your best effort to do it as well as you can.”
Gilles and Poirier were the bronze medallists at Worlds a year ago in Saitama, Japan, and had also earned that colour of medal in this event back in 2021. While moving up to the silver medal in Montreal might not seem like a particularly huge jump, remember this is ice dance, where gains are often incremental. The Canadians trailed Italy’s Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri by 1.01 points after the rhythm dance, but rocketed past them with Saturday’s performance. It was no small leap.
But Gilles and Poirier, creative folks that they are with a passion for storytelling on the ice, have always seen that side of ice dance as a major motivation in their 12 years together. That won’t change now.
“More than anything, we try to motivate ourselves by trying new things, by uncovering new ideas, by pushing ourselves, by trying to grow as artists and as dancers and as skaters,” explained Poirier. “I think we’re both so motivated by the process, by the training, by coming in every day, by working with our coaches and putting our heads together and figuring out what we want to do. I think that’s what keeps us motivated.
“You know of course there are moments in any sporting career where you’re going to feel like you keep running into the wall and you don’t know how to get to the next step, get to the next place. You feel like your effort isn’t going anywhere. And that’s a part of the process too. But I think we always choose to enjoy what we’re doing and we always choose to question what we do. I think that’s what’s kept us going for all these years.”
It will no doubt play a major role in deciding whether they’re in it for another season or two. As Gilles put it, stay tuned, folks. It’s a decision that will be eagerly anticipated in the months ahead.
Also riding high after the free dance were Canada’s youngest ice dance stars, Majorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha, who brought the audience to its feet with their elegant skate to “Roses,” a piece by Quebec composer and pianist Jean-Michel Blais’ that the dancers chose specifically for the season with Montreal, their home and training base, in mind.
For Lajoie and Lagha, their fifth-place finish was their highest yet at Worlds (they were 11th two years ago) and another sign of their rise this season. They had also qualified for the Grand Prix Final earlier this season, and placed sixth at that event. It’s why the result in Montreal wasn’t entirely a surprise to the duo, who didn't go to Worlds in 2023 because Canada had only two ice dance spots available in Saitama, Japan.
“If we put that in perspective, we didn’t do Worlds last year. On paper, we would have been around sixth (if we had),” said the 24-year-old Lagha. “So we’re not surprised that we got fifth, because we did the Final, and our goal here was to finish a little bit higher. So it just really feels good to achieve it.”
Added Lajoie: “We just hoped to skate well, but to skate well and have the result, it’s like a full package. We’re just very happy.”
The skaters were also a bit blown away by the thunderous standing ovation that enveloped them as they moved into the final pose of their program. It’s yet another reason why this Worlds has been “magic” for them.
“My eyes were closed so long (at the end) and I thought ‘open them and enjoy it.’ Like, I don’t know why (I did it),” said the 23-year-old Lajoie. “But then I saw the standing ovation and thought ‘that’s so amazing.’
“We worked so hard for this moment and after the adversity we had (Lajoie missed a month of training dealing with the effects of a severe concussion), to skate like this is like the cherry on top.”
It was also an emotional evening for Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Soerensen, who delivered a passionate performance to “Notre Dame de Paris” that left her in tears at the finish. They finished sixth in the free dance, 1.59 points behind Lajoie and Lagha, and moved up to ninth overall.
“It was just special, coming back from yesterday where we obviously didn’t perform what we have trained,” said the 35-year-old Soerensen. “So just getting out there with a performance that we’ve put so much love into … I think you know both of us are really just filled with love for the sport and (we got) to share that with the people of Montreal, who so rarely get to see our beautiful sport at this level. It was really special.”
With all three of its entries finishing in top 10 — and, most importantly, the top five results produced by the first two — Canada easily retained all of its ice dance spots for next year’s Worlds in Boston.
Rough day for Canadian men
And then there was one …
That pretty much sums up the day, and the reality, for Canada’s men at these Worlds. Two skaters wearing the red maple leaf represented the country in Montreal. But when the skating world reconvenes next year in Boston, that number will be cut in half, thanks to a rough day for Roman Sadovsky and Wesley Chiu in Saturday’s free skate final at the Bell Centre.
First, let’s get the numbers part out of the way. Canada needed the combined placements of Sadovsky and Chiu to total 28 or less to retain two spots for Boston. And heading into Saturday, they were just under that line — Sadovsky stood 11th and Chiu was 18th. By rule, the highest a skater can count is 16, so the Canadians were sitting at 27. Barely enough.
Then things went completely south on Saturday. First came Chiu, then Sadovsky, and neither had anything close to the kind of skate that was needed. While Chiu did move up a spot to 17th in the final standings, Sadovsky crashed all the way down to 19th. And there went that precious second spot for the Worlds that will determine 2026 Olympic allotments.
“For sure, those two spots are very important for us,” the 24-year-old Sadovsky said after word was relayed to him that the second one was gone. “I don’t know if that was the No. 1 thing on our mind — I can’t speak for him — but it’s very much (about) skating the best we can and seeing where those results found us. And I think we’re both very strong and capable of doing that.
“I’m disappointed I couldn’t put out what I could. If I really put out everything (in his long program), it is potentially a top 10 finish. Yeah, it definitely sucks (to lose the spot), but I don’t know what else to say. It sucks to go from two to one, but we’ll have to try to get it back (in 2025).”
For Sadovsky, the 2020 Canadian champion, almost every jump seemed to be a fight for him on this night. “Overall, just everything tonight was a little bit worse than I’m used to in practice but added up to me having to work much harder to save every jump.
“It was the small mistakes adding up … that were quite expensive.”
The 19-year-old Chiu, who his first Canadian title in January in Calgary, also needed to battle through his free program. As with Sadovsky, a string of mistakes proved to be his undoing in the end.
“There were a few costly mistakes that were sort of just adding up. Some of them were more frustrating than others,” he said. “I could have done a little bit better but I just tried to soak it all in. This was more of a learning experience, but I took a lot away from this competition.”
So now the job gets tougher for Sadovsky, Chiu and all of the Canadian men who show up at the 2025 national championships (wherever it is).
“At the end of the day, the focus is really on the skating,” Sadovsky reasoned. “If I’m not the one that is supposed to go on the World team, then I’m not the one that should be there, right? But if I skate to that quality, I skate to that quality. But it still comes down to the skating.”
The night, and these World Championships, closed out in spectacular fashion as Ilia Malinin of the United States (a.k.a. the Quadg0d) lived up to his nickname with a staggeringly breath-taking display of jumping. Skating last and having to match a superb performance by Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama, the 20-year-old American reeled off four quads (Axel, Lutz, loop and Salchow) to open his long program — and he was just getting started. Two more quads (a second Lutz and toe), both in combination, allowed him to rack up a stunning 137.18 technical score (including nearly 28 bonus points for jumps in the second half of the program) and 227.79 total (a new world record score for the free program, surpassing Nathan Chen’s 224.92 set in 2019). He collapsed on the ice in disbelief as the sellout crowd at the Bell Centre roared its approval, winning his first World title by a margin of 24.11 points.
France’s Adam Siao Him Fa made a spectacular leap of his own, from 19th after the short program to the bronze medal position with the second best free skate of the night (that including an illegal back flip).