Gilles & Poirier Golden at ISU Four Continents Championships

Shanghai, China (February 4, 2024) – Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier’s dream season continued on Sunday at the ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships in Shanghai, China as they won their first ISU Championships title in the ice dance competition. They were joined on the podium by Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Soerensen who captured silver for the second year in a row.

Gilles of Toronto, Ont., and Poirier of Unionville, Ont., led the competition from start to finish, making their performance to “Wuthering Heights” look effortless in their free skate today, garnering them a score of 128.87, and a total score of 214.36 for the win.

“It has been a long wait, but it’s been worth the wait,” said Gilles of the win after having come so close several times in the past to a win at this level. “You have to earn these moments, and I feel like we’ve finally timed things right and have finally earned it. We’re just really proud of this moment. Standing on top of the podium felt really surreal – I almost got a little bit emotional.”

Poirier added: “We’re really proud of ourselves. We had two really solid, enjoyable skates for the two of us. We really enjoyed our skating here and are proud of how we skated.”

Skating a dramatic love story to “Notre Dame de Paris,” Fournier Beaudry and Soerensen of Montreal, Que., had their best free skate of the season, earning a season’s best free skate score of 125.52 for a total score of 207.54 to earn them a silver medal for the second consecutive season.

“It was such a wonderful performance, with a lot of emotion, it was just a big relief, and a huge pleasure for us,” said Soerensen.

“We really felt free today and it was super fun to just perform. I think we stepped it up this week and we just will have a lot of motivation back home to build up towards Worlds,” added Fournier Beaudry.

Canadian skaters had all three of the top scores in the free dance as Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac of Ste-Anne-des-plaines, Que., performed brilliantly to their “Corpse Bride” music, scoring 119.57 for their efforts – a season’s best score, which moved them up from seventh to finish fifth overall with a total score of 190.83 – also a season’s best score.

Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko of the USA captured the bronze medal to round out the podium with a total score of 194.14.

For full results please click here.