Team Canada’s Olympic figure skating team for Milano Cortina 2026 revealed
Team Canada’s figure skating contingent for the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games has been revealed at the conclusion of the 2026 Canadian National Skating Championships in Gatineau, Quebec.
The Olympic team will include three ice dance duos, two pairs, and one competitor in each of the men’s and women’s singles events. Those quota spots were allocated based on placements at the 2025 ISU World Figure Skating Championships. The skaters now filling those spots were selected because of their international results and scores over the last two seasons, including strong performances at the national championships.
READ: Team Canada qualifies seven Olympic spots at World Figure Skating Championships
Four-time world championship medallists in ice dance, Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, will be making their third straight Olympic appearance together. For Poirier, who also competed at Vancouver 2010 with a previous partner, it will be his fourth Olympic Games. Gilles and Poirier have won silver at the last two world championships and would love to add an Olympic medal to their trophy cases. Now five-time national champions, they won gold and silver in their two ISU Grand Prix events this past fall.
“Piper and I are honoured to be selected for our third Olympic Games alongside this incredible team!” said Poirier. “We’re so excited to represent Canada once more and hope to bring a medal home with us.”
Team Canada Roster: See all the athletes nominated for Milano Cortina 2026
Joining them in the ice dance event will be Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha, who made their Olympic debuts at Beijing 2022, and Marie-Jade Laurault and Romain Le Gac, who previously competed for France at PyeongChang 2018.
Lajoie and Lagha have risen from being world junior champions in 2019 to a top five team at the 2024 ISU World Figure Skating Championships. They reached the podium in both of their Grand Prix events this season. Lauriault and Le Gac decided to start representing Canada, where Lauriault was born and raised, in 2020. That was after the couple, who have been married since 2015, competed for Le Gac’s country of birth.
In pairs, 2024 World Champions Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps will make their Olympic debuts, fulfilling lifelong dreams. At 42 years old, Stellato-Dudek will be the oldest woman to compete in an Olympic figure skating event since St. Moritz 1928. She and Deschamps, 34, began their partnership in 2019, three years after Stellato-Dudek came out of a 16-year retirement from figure skating. They won gold and silver in their two ISU Grand Prix events this fall.
“Maxime and I are honored to represent the maple leaf in Milan. This selection represents years of work, discipline and belief, and it is a dream come true,” said Stellato-Dudek.
Also competing in pairs will be Olympic rookies Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud, fresh off winning their first national title. After teaming up in 2022, they finished sixth at the 2023 World Championships, just over six months after their partnership was formed. They won bronze at last year’s ISU Four Continents Championships.
Stephen Gogolev will be Canada’s lone entry in men’s singles on the heels of winning his first senior national title. Just turned 21 in late December, Gogolev has been experiencing something of a career renaissance in 2025-26. He had first gained attention a decade earlier when videos of him landing triple axels and quadruple jumps at just 10 years old began circulating online.
As a 14-year-old, he was the silver medallist at the 2019 Canadian Championships, just a few weeks after winning the ISU Junior Grand Prix Final. But he then experienced a major growth spurt, which was followed by several seasons disrupted by injury, particularly stress fractures in his lower back. Back at full health this season, he won gold at the Nebelhorn Trophy, an ISU Challenger Series event, and then won his first ISU Grand Prix medal, a bronze at Finlandia Trophy.
Madeline Schizas is headed to her second Olympic Games as the lone Canadian competitor in women’s singles after winning her fourth national title. She was a star of the team event for Canada at Beijing 2022, placing second in both the short program and free skate. In her fifth straight world championship appearance this past spring, she posted her career-best result, placing sixth in the short program en route to an 11th-place finish overall.
Figure skating will be one of the first sports in action at the Games, with the rhythm dance and pairs and women’s short programs for the team event taking place before the Opening Ceremony on February 6. The team event will conclude on February 8, after which the ice dance event will begin on February 9, kicking off the traditional figure skating events at the Milano Ice Skating Arena. The figure skating competition will conclude on February 19.
Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Schedule
Figure skating is one of Canada’s most successful Winter Olympic sports with 29 medals all time, including six gold.
Team Canada Figure Skaters at Milano Cortina 2026:
Ice Dance
Piper Gilles (Toronto, Ont.) and Paul Poirier (Unionville, Ont.)
Marjorie Lajoie (Boucherville, Que.) and Zachary Lagha (St-Hubert, Que.)
Marie-Jade Lauriault (Ste-Anne-des-Plaines, Que.) and Romain Le Gac (Laval, Que.)
Pairs
Deanna Stellato-Dudek (Chicago, Illinois) and Maxime Deschamps (Vaudreuil-Dorion, Que.)
Lia Pereira (Milton, Ont.) and Trennt Michaud (Trenton, Ont.)
Men’s Singles
Stephen Gogolev (Toronto, Ont.)
Women’s Singles
Madeline Schizas (Oakville, Ont.)
