Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier retained their ISU Four Continents ice dance title in Seoul on Saturday (22 February), but only just.
The Canadians held a slender lead of 1.01 points over two-time reigning world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates from the rhythm dance. The US pairing won the free dance, but only by 0.48 and had to settle for silver.
Skating to jazz standards ‘Round Midnight’ and ‘Take Five’, Chock and Bates knew they needed a big score to put pressure on the leaders. Two lifts, including their opening rotational lift, attracted grades of execution (GoE) below two, although the majority of their elements earned GoEs of 2.5 and over.
Aside from those lifts, it was an excellent routine which yielded a score of 131.72, exactly four-tenths shy of their season’s best set in winning December’s Grand Prix Final of Figure Skating in Grenoble.
That left Gilles and Poirier – who took silver at last year’s Worlds – requiring a season’s best of their own to take overall victory. With the base value of their elements marginally lower than their North American rivals, their execution had to be near-flawless.
Dancing to a medley of ‘Air on a G String’ and ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’, they set the tone with a superb double rotational lift which earned a GoE of 4.42, higher than anything Chock and Bates achieved. That figure never dipped below 2.25 and, while they could not match the US duo’s score, 131.24 was enough for a total of 218.46 – just over a point below their career-best tally – and victory by 0.53.
Gilles looked stunned and delighted in the kiss-and-cry as their successful title defence was confirmed with she and Poirier then waving to the crowd. Their second crown leaves them one behind Chock and Bates’ three Four Continents’ triumphs.
Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha ensured two Canadian pairings would be on the podium. Despite being unable to set another career-best, as they did in the rhythm dance, Lajoie and Lagha took third place on the day, ahead of USA’s Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko, to match their bronze from 2023.
Poirier said afterwards, “I think we’re really proud of our performance today. It was really mentally challenging after such a long day, and a lot of time to wait and think. But we were so present in that performance – we really worked together – and we felt so much support from the crowd especially through the last minute and that really carried us.”
The top four pairings will meet again at next month’s World Championships in Boston, where Chock and Bates are bidding for a hat-trick of titles.
