Silver medal for Gilles and Poirier at ISU Four Continents

TAIPEI – Ice dancers Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Toronto posted their best result this season with a silver medal on Thursday at the ISU Four Continents Championships figure skating competition.

Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue of the U.S., took the gold with 158.25 points. Gilles and Poirier, the leaders after the short dance, followed at 153.71 and Alexandra Aldridge and Daniel Eaton of the U.S., were third at 144.95.

Gilles/Poirier impressed with a stationary lift and two rotational lifts, but lost a few points on a straight line lift and the diagonal steps that garnered a level two. The Canadians got a season’s best of 91.33 points for the free dance.

“We’ve had a season’s best in both programs; that’s definitely more than we can ask for,” said Poirier. “I think today the performance was a bit tight, compared to the times we’ve done it in the past, but there were some positive things to take out of this. We’re going to take this competition with us, because it taught us a lot about resilience and about being able to come back so quickly after nationals.”

Poirier suffered a serious ankle injury last spring in training that required surgery. They were fifth and sixth on the Grand Prix circuit this season and were fourth at the Canadian championships two weeks ago to fall short for a berth on the Olympic team.

Kharis Ralph of Toronto and Asher Hill of Pickering, Ont., were fourth at 137.03 and Nicole Orford of Burnaby, B.C., and Thomas Williams of Okotoks, Alta., fifth at 133.42.

In the women’s short program, Amelie Lacoste of Delson, Que., was 10th, Veronik Mallet of Sept-Iles, Que., 11th and Alaine Chartrand of Prescott, Ont., 15th. The free skate is on Sunday.

Competition continues Saturday with the free skates in pairs and men’s competition.

Full results: http://www.isuresults.com/results/fc2014/index.htm

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