Gilles & Poirier claim sixth straight Skate Canada International title; Stellato-Dudek & Deschamps win pairs gold
Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier made history in front of home fans in Saskatoon at the third stop of the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating.
With their victory, they became the first team to win six consecutive ice dance gold medals at Skate Canada International.
With a score of 202.89 points, the duo edged Lithuania’s Allison Reed and Saulius Ambrulevicius to take the title. They were joined on the podium by Canadians Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha, who climbed from fourth after the rhythm dance to take the bronze.
In their first competition of the season, Gilles and Poirier led after Saturday’s rhythm dance with a score of 85.38. But in the debut of their reimagined “Vincent” free dance, they had a costly error on their curve lift, when Gilles’ skate didn’t plant correctly on Poirier’s thigh. Unable to achieve all the intended features of the lift, they only received a level one, rather than the level four that is planned. The drop in their expected technical score allowed Reed and Ambrulevicius to finish first in the free dance, but not enough to close the gap overall.
“There’s always work to be done, but I think we’re proud of our competition, especially since it was our first of the season. The Olympics are getting closer and closer and this is a good foundation for us. We had an excellent rhythm dance on Saturday, which gave us confidence going into the free dance,” said Gilles.
They’ll next compete at Finlandia Trophy, taking place November 21-23, with their eyes set on qualifying for the Grand Prix Final. Lajoie and Lagha will be back on competition ice a week earlier at Skate America.
Gilles and Poirier weren’t the only Canadians to take home a gold medal from Saskatoon, as Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps won gold in pairs on Saturday, their third straight Skate Canada International win. It follows their silver medal at Grand Prix de France two weeks ago and makes them the first pair to qualify for the Grand Prix Final.
“We’re really happy and there’s still room for improvement. We’ve managed to show more of what we do in training. We want to compete in as many events as possible to iron out all the little details before the Olympics,” said Stellato-Dudek.
They had been in the second place after the short program, but in the free skate they more than made up the 4.50 points by which they trailed Germany’s Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin, who are two-time world championship medallists. Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps finished with a season’s best total score of 213.40.
Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud had hoped to make it a double podium after being third in the short program, but a few mistakes in the free skate dropped them to fourth overall.
Roman Sadovsky was the top Canadian in men’s singles as he finished in seventh place, just 0.25 ahead of fellow Canadian Stephen Gogolev as they continue to vie for the country’s lone Olympic spot in their event. In the women’s event, Madeline Schizas climbed from 12th to ninth overall after laying down a solid free skate.
Three competitions remain on the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating calendar as the action will shift to Japan next weekend with the NHK Trophy in Japan.
