MONTREAL
The long road to the top in ice dancing is taken in long, agonizing inches.
Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, bronze medalists last year for the second time, stepped up the podium to a silver medal this time, at home, in front of a wildly cheering crowd.
They finished their intriguing “Wuthering Heights” routine completely spent, giving everything they had, their faces like stones as thundering cheers rained down upon them.
It had seemed impossible to defeat reigning world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates, because it has rarely happened in the past. Chock ad Bates have won world titles despite falls in the past. But in last Saturday’s free skate, Gilles and Poirier did, at least in the free dance.
Gilles and Poirier won the free skate with 133.17 points, only 1.05 points higher than Chock and Bates’ 132.12. “We let that program sail,” Gilles said.
The Canadians won the technical mark with 75.25 points (Americans 73.76). Chock and Bates had higher components by only .44 points.
Despite filling ill all week, Marco Fabbri and partner Charleen Guignard took the bronze medal. Their march to the podium also was complicated when Guignard’s dress caught under her skate with only two elements left.
Winning the free skate showed that the long-serving Canadians are capable of being tops at a world championship. For now, Gilles says they will enjoy the show skating circuit and “keep everybody on their toes because that’s what we love to do. Keep everybody guessing.”
The duo has spent years delivering novel routines that go to the heart, aided by the creative, concept choreography of coaches Carol Lane and Juris Razgulajevs. At a time when banned Russians are decrying the world championships (or any events) as being empty without them, renowned Russian coach/choreographer Tatiana Tarasova was quoted as saying that the Canadians were “ahead of their time” with the “Wuthering Heights” program.
“I couldn’t even dream of such a program,” she said. “It’s a unique, outstanding piece of art.” The highest of praise indeed.
Gilles said they hadn’t even delivered “Wuthering Heights” as perfectly as they might have. Was it the best they’ve performed it this season? “Yes and no,” Gilles said.
“I think there were moments that we improved on and some we were a little bit like “hoo-boy, a little stiff in.
I think we got really, really excited to perform here today. But I think the training that we did going into this competition led us to have that performance today. Whether it was the best we felt at the end – nothing about that program was bad – but I think we just let that training that we did the last couple of weeks, the grind, we let that program sail.”
Poirier was excited by the progress they had made in Montreal on the world scene. “I think it’s a testament to the effort and the time we put in to try and g this level of competition. We’re always seeking to better ourselves.
“Taking these last few little steps to be the best in the world are so difficult and it’s so hard to know where to go.
“But these small victories are so rewarding still and they’re teaching us that we’re on the right track and that our efforts are leading us to where we want to be and that’s really exciting.”
They say they are motivated by the work at hand, by trying new things, uncovering new ideas, pushing themselves “by trying to grow as artists and as dancers and as skaters,” Poirier said.
“There are moments in any sporting career where you’re going to feel like you keep running into the wall and you don’t know how to get to the next step, get to the next place,” he said. “You feel like your effort isn’t going anywhere. And that’s a part of the process, too. But I think we always choose to enjoy what we’re going and w always choose to question what we do.”
Gilles said their focus in training had been to make sure their technique was rock solid. They worked to ensure their footwork sequences were well executed, as in the one-foot section. “Those are where we get the points,” she said. “Because we know that our choreographic elements usually are where we thrive.”
The footwork sections have also had lower levels throughout the season. In Montreal, they received levels 3 and 2 for their one-foot sequences and their diagonal steps.
Chock and Bates got only a level two for their stationary lift: this probably made the difference between winning the free and finishing second in it.
All three Canadian teams finished in the top six in the free skate. Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha, who missed two major competitions when Lajoie suffered a serious concussion, finished fifth in the free, with astonishing levels of 3 and 4 in the one-foot steps, while Laurence Fournier-Beaudry and Nikolaj Sorensen, Canadian champions last year when Gilles and Poirier had to sidestep the nationals, finished sixth. Lajoie and Lagha finished 1.59 points ahead of Fournier-Beaudry and Sorensen in the free.
Fournier and Beaudry finished ninth overall, after a 10th place finish in the rhythm dance, in which Fournier-Beaudry stepped out of a twizzle. They had been fifth at the world championships last year.
“This is a step back definitely from last year,” Sorensen said. “But I think the last moments of the free dance kind of showed how we felt about it, regardless of the points. We’re not in charge of the judges and all the outside, external factors that put you where you end up being. We just did what we could control.”
Sorensen said he also felt the marks were a little low. There were some levels they didn’t hit. They skated first in their group. They came in with a less-than-perfect rhythm dance.
Sorensen is being investigated for an alleged sexual assault and has not been charged. Still, the crowd greeted the dancers warmly at the beginning and end of their routine. They were skating on home ice.
“It was very amazing,” said the elegant Fournier-Beaudry. “Very, very, very, very, very amazing. I had to concentrate because I told myself I had a job to do. But I really took all the love that they sent us right before the program to deliver it in the performance after.”
Lajoie and Lagha are making big steps up the ladder and have turned into major competitors. Never mind that Canada had only two spots for ice dancers at world championships last year and the Quebec skaters were left at home as Canada’s third team.
“Put that into perspective: we didn’t do worlds last year and I think on paper we would have been sixth, I think,” Lagha said. “In competition anything can happen. We’re not surprised we got fifth. We did the (Grand Prix) final. Our goal was to get higher, so it just really feels good to achieve it.”
Since both have been plagued with injuries in the past, they resolve to not let it happen again, going forward.
They skated to a special routine, conjured up just because the world championships was in Montreal. The piece, “Roses,” was composed by Montreal pianist Jean-Michel Blais, who has a remarkable, unusual past. He is now considered the top pop pianist/composer in Quebec.
“I hope Jean will see it,” Lajoie said. “I think it’s special. I hope it’s special for him too.”
Lajoie met him once when he gave a show at Centre Ville where he played in front of a big crowd. “I was crying,” Lajoie said. “It was so beautiful. When I met him, I told him we chose his music and we were going to skate to it, and he was very honoured and happy. He knows.”
The team had to balance training for worlds and following concussion protocols. She’s proud they followed the protocols in the midst of having to get ready for a world championshnips. “We didn’t want to overtrain [yet] be ready to perform,” she said. Imagine what they can do without all of this difficulty.
Lagha said their best moment was after their free program, when they got a standing ovation.
“My eyes were closed for so long [in the ending pose] and I thought: ‘Wait, open and enjoy.’ I saw the standing ovation and it was amazing,” Lajoie said.
“I think we were thinking about how it felt proud and we were just enjoying. We worked so hard for this moment and …to be able to skate like this, it’s like the cherry on top,” she said.
Lajoie and Lagha broke the 200 barrier with 208.01 points as did seven other teams. Fournier-Beaudry and Sorensen got 199.91 in ninth place.
The “Wuthering Heights” routine from Gilles and Poirier will live on as the best of a list of very memorable routines. Did they know early on this one was the ticket?
“I don’t think you ever know,” Poirier said. “That’s part of it, the big gamble, the jump you take off the cliff at the beginning of every season.
“Some programs feel when you are creating them that they’re so perfect, exactly how you want them, then they kind of stagnate and don’t go how you want them to. And other programs surprise you, they grow in magical, fun ways. And that’s all part of it, too.
“I think we’ve learned over the years that some programs don’t pan out exactly how we want and other programs really carry us and it’s not like there’s a magic formula and you know which ones are going to work. You just try your best every year to create what you want to do and put your best effort to od it as well as you can.”
The “Wuthering Heights” will always be big heavy machinery in the repertoire of Gilles and Poirier, if not only because it helped them win the free dance at a world championship, but also because it’s a supreme creative moment of loveliness.
Will they be sorry to put this program away?
Gilles says no.
However, she says it will be sad to say goodbye because of how it felt.
“We worked so hard to make that program feel easy,” she said. “It’s probably been one of the hardest programs to pace of our career. There’s so much in the middle of this program and it’s really hard to not get excited and get overly antsy to get those elem6tns done.
“Learning the pacing of that program was difficult but not we’ve got to the point that we let the program come to us and we can attack at the end.
“It will be sad to say goodbye in that sense.
“But not that I won’t have to run this program again.”
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