Leah Hennel/COC

Olympic medallists Gilles & Poirier lead Canada into figure skating world championships

The figure skating season isn’t over yet. 

Whether you were already a super fan of the sport or became a new one after watching the incredible performances by Canadian figure skaters at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games, the 2026 ISU Figure Skating World Championships soon to get underway in Prague, Czechia are sure to be intriguing. 

Some skaters will be looking to build on the breakthroughs they enjoyed on Olympic ice. Others will be looking to bounce back after perhaps not having the performances they wanted at the Games. 

Ice dancers Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier are looking to treat the world championships as a “celebration” of their skating after achieving their big goal for the season: winning an Olympic medal. 

“I think we want to give ourselves the opportunity to skate with a little bit less pressure and just really enjoy all that we’ve accomplished and all that we’ve done this season,” Poirier said during a recent conference call. 

Consistent with how they’ve approached this season from the start, they did not outright confirm whether the world championships will mark the end of their competitive careers after 15 years together. 

“We always lead with our heart and lead with what our bodies want to do. I think we want to just really be present at the world championships and not have an ending kind of lingering over and having this mindset of this could be the end. So I think we’re just going to leave it open ended. I think we just want to go to the world championships, enjoy ourselves, enjoy our skating,” said Gilles.

As is often the case for figure skating world championships that immediately follow an Olympic Games, some Olympic medallists have opted out of competing. Among them are three-time world ice dance champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States who won silver in Milan, men’s Olympic champion Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan, pairs Olympic champions Riku Miura & Ryuichi Kihara of Japan, and women’s Olympic champion Alysa Liu of the United States. 

Deciding whether to compete in Prague was something Gilles and Poirier took time to consider in the aftermath of winning an Olympic bronze medal with a career-best performance. 

“In a lot of ways, coming out of the Olympics, we were really satisfied with how we skated and it felt like it could be a very natural place to leave this season. We were also very tired because it’s a very overstimulating environment. On the other hand, we’re getting ready for show season. We had to be on the ice in any case,” explained Poirier, noting that they knew their fans—both old and new—would relish the opportunity to see them skate one more time. 

“So we gave ourselves a week at home after the Games to train and to see how we felt and to see if our bodies were cooperating with us. And as we started training we felt excited at the prospect of going to Prague and that excitement coming in through being tired, in the end, is what made that decision for us.” 

Whatever their 13th world championship appearance may hold for them, Gilles and Poirier have spent the weeks since they stood on the Olympic podium in “contentment and peace” with what they accomplished. 

“I don’t think we intended to be that content after a program,” said Gilles. “I think we just allowed ourselves to be so present in that moment. […] So even when we got to the podium, we were like we could stay on this podium forever and be totally content.”  

She later reflected on the length of time it has taken to achieve their career goals, concluding that the wait was worth it.

“If you’re successful in the middle of your career and you’re trying to chase that for the rest of it, that’s really hard and could be extremely stressful. So for us to slowly build, we’re like the tortoise and the hare, we get there in the end and we end up winning on our own time and I think that’s just an example for any athlete coming up and maybe feeling like they’re not making it. You can still get there. It’s your own path. It’s your own journey.”

Milano Cortina 2026 was the first big international event for 21-year-old Stephen Gogolev, who will now compete at his first senior world championships. His fifth-place finish in the Olympic men’s event has not changed his mindset, just inspired more confidence, which had been growing with each competition throughout the season. 

“I knew that if I skated my best, my expectations were somewhere around top 10, top eight. I don’t think I had imagined myself being in a top five position, especially being less than two points away from third. But knowing that I gave it my all and this was my personal best and the best I’ve competed ever, I have no regrets whatsoever,” said Gogolev.

After arriving home from the Games, he did deal with illness for about a week, but was ready to be back in training when his choreographer Benoit Richaud (who became famous for the multitude of team jackets he sported in Milan to support the many skaters he worked with) came to Toronto to refine a few things ahead of the worlds. 

One of the things Gogolev is most happy about this season was being able to compete regularly, having returned to full form after dealing with disruptive back injuries. That has allowed him to build up his reputation and world ranking.

But he’s not the only one with some new hype around his name. Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud are excited and motivated for the worlds after four solid skates in Milan, highlighted by their third-place finish in the pairs’ short program, which put them into the final flight for the free skate. 

“To be in that top group at the Olympics, I think, on paper, sounded a little bit crazy and not necessarily where we had expected,” reflected Pereira, noting they had hoped to be in the top eight heading into the free skate. “It was just a very confirming realization that we’ve put in the work and we deserve to be in that spot. I don’t think we felt out of place.”

“It’s a vote of confidence for ourselves when we feel like we’ve accomplished our goal of how we want to skate and how we want to feel after we skate, that we’re able to put up the scores and be in the contention of where we think we belong and want to be,” added Michaud.  

They thought the weeks between the Olympics and world championships would go slowly, but were thankful when time flew by quickly. After a few days to rest upon returning home from Milan, they were back on the ice preparing their show numbers, which brought some freshness to the training of their competitive elements. 

They’ve also had to deal with the realization of how much more known they are now, whether it be the waitress in a restaurant recognizing them or people going out of their way to say hi while grocery shopping or kids at a March break camp being enthralled by meeting Olympians.

“It’s really cool because that’s the whole point of the Games, to bring the world together and bring people together, unified in something,” said Michaud. “Hopefully some of these people will stay and watch throughout the quad and just have more interest in skating post-Olympics, not just at the Olympics.”

Who is competing for Canada at the 2026 World Figure Skating Championships? 

In ice dance, Canada will be represented by the same three teams that competed at Milano Cortina 2026: Piper Gilles & Paul Poirier, Marjorie Lajoie & Zachary Lagha, and Marie-Jade Lauriault & Romain Le Gac. 

Competing in pairs will be Lia Pereira & Trennt Michaud and Kelly Ann Laurin & Loucas Éthier, who are substituting in for Deanna Stellato-Dudek & Maxime Deschamps. 

As in Milan, Stephen Gogolev and Madeline Schizas are Canada’s entries in the men’s and women’s singles events, respectively. 

What is the schedule for the 2026 World Figure Skating Championships? 

Wednesday March 25 

6:30 a.m. ET – Women’s Short Program
1:45 p.m. ET – Pairs’ Short Program

Thursday March 26

6:30 a.m. ET – Men’s Short Program
1:15 p.m. ET – Pairs’ Free Skate 

Friday March 27 

6:30 a.m. ET – Rhythm Dance
1:00 p.m. ET – Women’s Free Skate 

Saturday March 28 

7:30 a.m. ET – Men’s Free Skate
1:30 p.m. ET – Free Dance

Prague has proven magical for Canadian figure skaters in the past. The last time the city hosted the world championships in 1993, Kurt Browning and Elvis Stojko won gold and silver in the men’s event and Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler became the pairs world champions. Thirty-one years earlier, Donald Jackson landed the first ever triple lutz in competition to win the 1962 men’s world title as Canadians reached the podium in all four events. 

You can catch all the action from this year’s world championships on cbcsports.ca and CBC Gem.