Canadian figure skating star overcame cancer en route to long-awaited Olympic medal
On a Wednesday in Milan, a pair of Canadian Olympic figure skating stars finally got their long-awaited medal.
Ice dancers Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, competing in their third Olympic Games together, managed to land on the podium with a bronze medal, the first of their respective careers.
In the “Starry Night” themed outfits and dancing to the song “Vincent,” the duo put up a performance for the ages, finishing third behind duos representing the United States and France.
But back in 2023, Gilles had a medical scare that could’ve ended her career abruptly: a bout with ovarian cancer. Though she’s now cancer-free, she admits that the doubts crept in about whether it could be the end of her athletic career.
“It’s like, ‘Am I gonna have to stop skating? Am I going to have to go through chemo?’ There was so much unknown,” she said in the Netflix documentary Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing. “I was lucky enough to just have surgery, like, we didn’t know how bad it was because it was a nine-centimetre cyst with the tumour, I believed, attached to it… It took about two and a half years for me to feel like myself.”
“In those moments, you don’t really realize how strong you are, and I’m just so proud of any of the hurdles that have been put in front of me,” Gilles said to fellow Canadian Olympic star Tessa Virtue in a recent sitdown for CBC.
What’s next for the Canadian Olympic figure skating stars?
Following their ice dance performance in Milan — which very well could be the final one of their career on the world stage — both partners were visibly overcome with emotion.
“Seeing Paul get super emotional, like that doesn’t happen often,” said Gilles following the skate, per the COC. “But again, that’s what it takes to have an Olympic moment like that.
“We just let it all out, and to be able to finish like that, we’re just so unbelievably proud of what we’ve accomplished, I guess.”
Both 34 years old, the duo have skated together since 2011. Gilles, who was born in Illinois to a Canadian mother, actually previously competed for the United States with partners Zachary Donohue and Timothy McKernan.
Poirier, meanwhile, competed alongside Vanessa Crone for the first decade of his career, which included a home appearance at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Given that they’ll be 38 at the next Olympic Games (and that they were the second-oldest pairing in the Olympic field), age would suggest that competitive retirement could be in the duo’s near future.
For now, though, they’ll be able to bask in the glory of finally achieving a lifelong dream.