Gilles and Poirier Take Fifth Spot at ISU World Figure Skating Championships®

MONTPELLIER, France – Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Toronto placed fifth in ice dancing Saturday to conclude the ISU World Figure Skating Championships.

Olympic champions Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France took the gold with 229.82 points. Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue of the U.S. were second at 222.39 and their compatriots Madison Chock and Evan Bates third at 216.83.

The top-five remained unchanged after Friday’s rhythm dance as Gilles and Poirier totalled 202.70.

‘’It was especially satisfying to end the season with a skate on our terms,’’ said Poirier. ‘’The Olympic free dance didn’t go the way we wanted for us. It was important do the last performance of the season the way we know we can do it.’’

Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Sorensen of Montreal were ninth and Marjorie Lajoie of Boucherville, Que., and Zachary Lagha of St-Hubert, Que., 11th.

Sorensen injured his back in training earlier in the week and it came back to haunt him near the end of the free dance.

‘’We started out well,’’ said Sorensen. ‘’All the things we’d been working on since the Olympics worked out great. But two thirds of the way in I couldn’t really find my legs, so I had trouble at the end. It’s unfortunate but it happens.’’

Lajoie and Lagha were 14th at the worlds last year and 13th at the Olympics.

‘’The most difficult thing was to keep the motivation after a disappointing rhythm dance,’’ said Lagha. ‘’We’ve always been a strong team mentally and I think we showed that tonight.’’

Olympic bronze medallist Shoma Uno led Japan to a 1-2 finish in men’s competition. Yuma Kajiyama, the silver medallist in Beijing, was second and Vincent Zhou of the U.S. was third.

Roman Sadovsky of Vaughan, Ont., produced the ninth best free skate to surge from 18th after the short program to 12th overall. Canadian champion Keegan Messing was 14th.

‘’Compared to my performance at the Olympics this was night and day,’’ said Sadovsky. ‘’I’m really proud of how I handled the pressure here. I know there’ll be better moments to come.’’

Canada ends the competition with one bronze medal won by Vanessa James and Eric Radford in pairs on Thursday.

Full results: http://www.isuresults.com/results/season2122/wc2022/

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