Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier haven’t missed a beat.
They did not compete at the national championships last year because Gilles was dealing with a cancer diagnosis, but on Saturday, it was as if they had never been away.
They held the spectators in spellbound mode with their “Wuthering Heights” routine, their latest memorable masterpiece of many. It may be the best of all.
With two of Canada’s top teams having withdrawn, Gilles and Poirier won easily, by 22.45 points, scoring 222.95 points, with exploding GOE numbers and highest levels of difficulty on almost every element.
Their free dance score alone was 136.17.
New faces filled the other medal spots. Marie-Jade Lauriault, and Romain Le Gac, skating to the “Corpse Bride,” with choreography you can only imagine, took the silver medal with 200.50 points, after finishing second in the free dance with 122.5 points. Their choreographic character step was a highlight, earning 3.32 GOE bonus points.
“We’re just happy it came out alive (ironic considering their theme), like we train it,” Lauriault said. Breaking the 200-mark barrier had been a goal from the start of the season.
The heartwarming bronze medalists are Alicia Fabbri and Paul Ayer, he from Calgary. Together with Fabbri for six years, Ayer had never skated in front of his friends and extended family. This time they did.
They were ready for it. They skated the performance of their lives to “Someone You Loved,” and “Composition” by Lewis Capaldi and earned a standing ovation, as well as a free dance score of 117.86 and a final total of 195.61, marks that are new to them.
Competition was still tight: last year’s junior champions Nadiia Bashynska and Peter Beaumont had been sitting fourth after the rhythm dance, but finished only eighth in the free dance after Beaumont went to a knee in the circular footwork. They finished sixth overall, but fit very well into the senior scene.
Gilles said they have not done as many big changes in the free as in the rhythm dance, but “there are all these tiny little things that affect each linking element, but I think will have a big impact.”
Missing the national championships last year was difficult for them, Gilles admitted. “I think we’re just thrilled to have a Canadian audience.” They had never skated in Calgary in a competition setting.
Nationals still holds that magic, Poirier said.
And they were rewarded handsomely. Judges gave them eight scores of 10, scattered through the three categories of components: composition, presentation and skating skills. (Presentation had four of them.)
“I think Paul and I really skated like champions today,” Gilles said. “I think we stepped out on the ice and just remembered who we were and why we’re here.”
They’re using this as a stepping stone for worlds, where they want to be on the top of the podium. “So we’ve got to start acting like those champions and I think we really did that today and really enjoyed the performance.”
Poirier said the field is really deep at both Four Continents and world championships. “And we have some really strong competitors,” he said. “I really do think the results at these major championships are going to come down to these small little things of execution.”
Their vehicles are right, Poirier said, but “it’ll be down to us to bring our best skating to those competitions, not letting the little nerves get to us, and really just skating the programs with presence and ultimately with freedom and with emotion.”
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