Gilles, Poirier feelin’ the Olympic rhythm
OTTAWA — Skating to an upbeat Elton John medley and dressed in neon orange sequined jumpsuits, Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier surely would have brought the crowd to its feet with their high-energy rhythm dance Friday — had there been a crowd.
The reigning world ice dance bronze medallists are the leaders after the short dance at the Canadian figure skating championships with a score of 86.98 points. Moments after their performance they reflected on competing at an Olympic trials in front of no audience.
“It feels kind of strange,” said Gilles, a 29-year-old from Toronto. “Again, we don’t have the audience, so again today we really had to focus on ourselves.
“That’s really what we needed to do today. We really enjoyed it and I hope that the fans at home enjoyed it as much as we did.”
Madeline Schizas of Oakville, Ont., is the leader after the women’s short program. Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro won the pairs short program.
Laurence Fournier-Beaudry and Nikolaj Sorensen go into today’s free dance in second with 81.04 while Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha are third (76.67).
Canada has three berths in ice dance for the Beijing Olympics, two in both pairs and men’s singles, and one in women’s singles. The team will be announced Sunday.
The trials are being held with no crowd in Ottawa due to the rise of COVID-19 cases in Ontario. The provincial government recently ruled major events could have no more than 1,000 people in attendance.
There was a smattering of applause from coaches and other officials in attendance when Gilles and Poirier struck their final pose.
“I’m smiling under this mask, I swear,” Poirier said on a virtual availability with media afterward. “First and foremost we’re really treating this competition as a training opportunity for the Olympic Games. That’s where we really want to be peaking.
“We’re just excited to be back on a competitive stage, performing these programs and I think we’re just really trying to be present in the performances,” added the 30-year-old from Unionville, Ont. “That’s where we’ll really focus during the next month of training and just really want people to believe in the work that we’re doing. In order for us to do that, we really need to believe in what we’re doing, to be present in each moment of the program.”
Gilles and Poirier had been scheduled to compete at the Grand Prix Final last month, but it was one of the first international sports events scrapped as the Omicron variant began to spread across the globe.
The virus continues to pose a major threat to athletes as a positive test from this point on could keep them from travelling to Beijing. Athletes weren’t required to present a negative test before competing in Ottawa.
The U.S. nationals are being held with fans in Nashville, and have already seen positive cases. Two-time champion Alysa Liu withdrew from the U.S. championships after testing positive Friday, less than a day after a third-place finish in the short program put her in position to make the Olympic team.
Vanessa James and Eric Radford, who contracted COVID over the Christmas holidays, are gunning for a spot on the Canadian team, but are fourth after the pairs short program.
“[Skating] after 12 days off [in isolation], we came here to try our best, our elements are very solid, now we just haven’t had the mileage doing them over and over again for the last two weeks in a program,” James said. “I think there was a little doubt that at least went through my mind and hopefully that we can erase that tomorrow.”
Radford, a two-time world champion with former partner Meagan Duhamel, came out of retirement at the age of 36 to compete at another Olympics. James is looking for her first Olympics competing for Canada after representing France.