Worlds 2025: 'We skated with joy, we skated with our hearts'
Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier's dream of claiming an ice dance world title in Boston didn't happen, but silver will be their springboard toward a golden Olympic quest

Wily veterans of the dance that they are, Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier know well enough how to turn a moment of disappointment into, well, the silver lining they found at the 2025 World Figure Skating Championships.
And they’re choosing to play the long game with this one, all the way to the podium that matters most of all less than a year from now.
Gilles and Poirier came to these Worlds in Boston with gold in their thoughts and really, how couldn’t they? It was the goal a year ago in Montreal, when they rose up to the silver medal position for the first time at a World Championships. And it surely had to be again after they took down the two-time world champions from the United States just a month ago at the Four Continents Championships in South Korea.
Alas, though, it wasn’t meant to be. The issue was pretty much decided when American favourites Madison Chock and Evan Bates seized a 3.75-point lead after the rhythm dance. And when they squeezed out a 1.78-edge over Gilles and Poirier in the free dance, their third straight world crown was in the bag.
However, this year’s Worlds also clearly cemented the Canadians’ position as the second-best on the planet, and the obvious prime challengers to Chock and Bates when the meet in Italy next year for the big prize at the 2026 Winter Olympics. And as that popular saying goes, that’s not nothing.
And let it be said Gilles and Poirier are taking that forward-looking view.
“We wanted to be on top of the podium here, so it is a little disappointing, but there’s not much to be disappointed about because we had two wonderful skates,” said the 33-year-old Gilles. “We skated with joy, with skated with our hearts. The Olympic Games are coming up (next year) and our eyes are still on top of the podium, and silver’s a stepping stone for us.”
They certainly left TD Garden with a lot to be happy about. The final rendition this season of their “A Whiter Shade of Pale” free dance (and yes, we’re aware there’s still a World Team Trophy to come) was a virtuoso performance, a skate that did proud the masterpiece they’d created along with coaches Carol Lane, Juris Razgulajevs and Jon Lane at their Ice Dance Elite training base in Toronto’s east end. And they were swept up in the emotion of it all right to the finish.

“We were so settled from the moment it started. It was the calmest we felt all year. We just wanted to enjoy this program one last time,” said Gilles. “To put it out on the ice when it really counts is so special. I’m so proud of us. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten that emotional after a program. We felt so at ease; it was a great experience.”
It wasn’t always the easiest of seasons for these two, especially back in the Grand Prix campaign, when uncharacteristic falls at two events cost them first a gold medal at the GP event in Finland, then a spot on the podium at the Final in France. But after some soul searching and reflection after those mishaps, they emerged as stronger force as the calendar flipped in 2025.
First came a standout performance of both programs — including their crowd-pleasing “Ken and Barbie go to the beach” rhythm dance — at the Canadian Championships in Laval, Quebec. Then came the gold at Four Continents, and the breakthrough victory over Chock and Bates that came along with it. While a repeat of that didn’t end up being in the cards in Boston, it took nothing away from the two performances they delivered at TD Garden.
“We’re really proud of what we accomplished this week,” said Poirier, 33. “Both of our programs felt really strong and we really feel, as we get to the culmination of the season, that the programs have grown into programs that we dreamed they would be at the start of the season.
“We are a little bit disappointed to not have won here; that was the objective that we set for ourselves. But I think at the same time, we can be very proud of the way we handled this season. We had a really rocky start, and we’ve really come back together through the second half of the season, and so I think we have a lot to be proud of.”
The ending, however, was a little bit more of a stunner for Canada’s second entry at this competition. Montreal-based Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha were sitting in fifth place after the rhythm dance and well-positioned to finish in the top five at Worlds for a second straight year. Especially with a free dance, skated to Disturbed’s haunting rendition of “The Sound of Silence,” that is quality stuff and had been good to them along the way.
But it’s a program that has seemed to have lost some steam in the eyes of the judging panels as the season nears its end. They only earned a 118.18 score for it at Four Continents — their lowest free dance score in more than a year — and it wasn’t much better in Boston, with the 118.64 total this time leaving them with stunned looks in the kiss and cry area. It dumped them down to seventh in the final standings, a drop of two spots.
The duo struggled to explain it all afterward.
“My personal feeling, I really feel like I connected with the music and with Zach, I felt very good, and I was super happy at the end,” Lajoie, 24, told reporters after their skate. “But at the same time, of course, we’re disappointed with the result and the score. So I would need to look at the video to answer your question properly. I felt really good and happy. We always say that our goal is to feel happy about our performance and the rest will come, so I think that we can be proud of what we did today.”
The 26-year-old Lagha, however, felt they left some points on the table.
“I think today was not our best skate. It was okay,” he said. “Artistically, it was very good, but I think technically it could have been better.”
The good news, though — and it was probably the safest Canadian bet coming into this competition — is that the finishes by Gilles and Poirier, and Lajoie and Lagha, assured the country will carry three ice dance berths into the Milan Olympics. And that’s good news for teams such as Alicia Fabbri and Paul Ayer, who wound up 20th in their Worlds debut this week and have Olympic dreams of their own.

For them, just being on the ice a second time on Saturday was an accomplishment, especially after sweating out the process of qualifying for the free dance (they advanced primarily because two other skaters fell during their programs, which elevated the Montreal-based duo into 19th place in the rhythm dance, one spot above the cut line).
“We’re just happy we were given another opportunity,” said Fabbri, 22. “We came into today like we had nothing to lose and just enjoyed every single moment.”
Added the 26-year-old Ayer: “We really lived the ‘you don’t know what you have until it’s gone’ yesterday. So to be here on the ice today … it’s good.”
One of Fabbri’s first memories of Worlds was the 2016 event held in the same building as this one. It’s something that came to mind again this week.
“Ten years ago, I had just started ice dance. (Being at Worlds) is something you dream of, but you don’t know if you’re going to be there someday.,” she said “Being here, I had a thought for the little me that had just started ice dance and that feeling was really cool.”
There was a bit of history made on the podium when Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson squeezed into the bronze medal spot ahead of Italy’s Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri. It represented the first ice dance medal for Great Britain at Worlds since the legendary Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean won gold in Ottawa in 1984. It was also Fear and Gibson’s first Worlds medal.

Movin’ on up at Worlds
When Roman Sadovsky showed up at the World Championships in Montreal last season, he did so with plenty of tread still left on the tires, so to speak. It was only his third competition of the entire season and let’s just say he would have enjoyed another test drive or two.
While that competition started out well for him with a 12th place finish in the short program, the lack of mileage showed in his free skate, which wasn’t anywhere near as strong and left him 19th in the final standings. In part, it had a hand (along with Wesley Chiu’s 17th place result) in Canada losing one of its men’s spots for this year’s Worlds in Boston. It also put the 26-year-old Sadovsky in the position of trying to potentially earn that second berth back with a top 10 finish. Easier said than done.
Indeed, it was always going to be a challenge to get there, especially against the high octane field that showed up at TD Garden this week. And while that top 10 didn’t indeed happen, there were plenty of positives for the Toronto skater to take home. His 14th-place finish was five places higher than a year ago. Most importantly, he delivered two quality skates this week and that’s something to build on further for the soon to be arriving Olympic season.
“After having struggles the past couple of seasons, it was great to put together two good programs. I was definitely trying to aim a little bit higher in this event,” he said after his free skate to music from the “Interstellar” soundtrack, mixed with orchestral music by Hans Zimmer. “Overall I think this proves that the training has been strong.”
Sadovsky admitted being “super nervous” for this event, knowing he had to place in the top 24 in the short program to advance to the free — and secure that one Olympic spot for Canada. After sailing through comfortably in 15th place, he felt “like a huge weight lifted.”
“Short program, I was super nervous. Lots of pressure … like, days before. After a strong short, it kind of broke the ice a little bit,” he said. “I felt so much lighter yesterday in practice and today in practice, realizing that I’m at the destination and now I can perform to the best of my abilities, and not worry about anything.”
The Canadian champion had to perform his free program after a thunderous ovation that followed a brilliant skate by Latvia’s Deniss Vasiljevs. But if anything, it helped rev Sadovsky up to lay down a strong effort of his own.
“Deniss Vasiljevs skated before me and had a loud crowd and a standing ovation. Probably, you can guess what he did — he had a good skate,” he said. “I used that as fuel, as energy and the crowd really welcomed me. They were excited to watch and I was excited to perform.
“I feel like it probably helped me in a way. It just felt like, bring it on, let’s go. This is a competition and good competition is why I do this. If it wasn’t competition, I wouldn’t be doing it. I’m not just thankful skating (laughs).”
Sadovsky landed a pair of quads in his program (one was judged to be under-rotated) and six triple jumps. The end result was a season’s best 160.13 score for the program, which ranked 13th on the night. His 240.38 total was also tops for him as well in the 2024-24 campaign.
In other words, not a bad way to finish at all.
Meanwhile, the full house at TD Garden came to see a show from Ilia Malinin in the men’s event, and the “Quad God” delivered in spectacular fashion. The 20-year-old American unleashed a program that featured six quads in all (including the quadruple Axel that only he has landed) in winning his second straight World title by a whopping 31.09 points.
While Malinin’s expected top challenger, Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama, had a poor free skate and barely hung onto the bronze medal, there was another dose of excitement between them. That was provided by Mikhail Shaidorov, who had a terrific free skate of his own punctuated by four quadruple jumps. It made the 20-year-old the first Worlds men’s medallist from Kazakhstan since the late Denis Ten won bronze medals in 2013 and 2015. A month ago, he also followed Ten as just the second Kazakh skater to strike gold at the Four Continents Championships.