By Valentina Za and Elvira Pollina
MILAN, Feb 11 (Reuters) – Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier offered proof of the reward that perseverance through hardship can bring when they captured Canada’s first Olympic podium in eight years at the Winter Games’ ice dance event on Wednesday.
With an overall score of 217.74 points, their season best, the five-times Canadian champions kept ahead of home contenders Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri and British medal hopefuls Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson.
“When I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, I don’t think I envisioned this moment but … if you continue to lead with your heart, anything can happen,” said Gilles, whose light blue dress with golden circles echoed Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night.
“For anybody going through any kind of dark time … if you can just get out of bed and keep believing in yourself … anything can happen,” she said.
The pair had burst into tears after completing their free programme. Gilles then greeted the score by jumping on her feet.
Dancing to Govardo’s acoustic ballad “Vincent” in the free dance segment, Gilles and Poirier held onto the third spot they had secured on Monday, when they scored 86.18 points in the rhythm dance performed under the season’s required 1990s theme.
The duo, who have been skating together since 2011, finished fourth when they first stepped on the ice in Milan during last week’s team event.
“This 15-year long journey hasn’t been easy, but Paul and I have stuck it out time and time again,” said Gilles, who underwent surgery in late 2022 to remove an ovary and appendix, later learning the tumor was cancerous.
Her mother had died from brain cancer in 2018.
“They deserve to be on the podium,” said Antonia Lutha, a Viennese ice skater.
Lutha said she and her mother, who held a Canada flag, had become Canada supporters because of Tessa Virtue, a now retired Canadian ice dancer and three-time Olympic champion with partner Scott Moir.
Virtue and Moir won Canada’s last Olympic free dance medal at the PyeongChang 2018 Games, where Gilles and Poirier finished eighth. They improved to seventh at the 2022 Beijing Games.
“Piper and I both felt so calm today, which was a little bit strange actually going into a competition of these stakes,” Poirier said.
“We really allowed ourselves to be vulnerable today and to just say: this is who we are, this is what we do. Here you go.”
(Reporting by Valentina Za; Editing by Chris Reese)
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