“Anything is possible” as Gilles & Poirier shine on Olympic ice dancing stage

The wait is over for Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier.

After 15 years of skating together, the two are finally Olympic medallists, capturing bronze in the ice dance competition at Milano Cortina 2026.

The wait was worth it.

“It’s been such a rewarding journey, not necessarily rewarding in all the ways that we anticipated, but that’s what makes life so beautiful,” said a reflective Poirier following the medal ceremony. “That’s what makes sports so beautiful is it takes you on a road you can’t anticipate, and you live the fullness of humanity through sport all the time, so I think we’re just so grateful for all of the incredible moments we’ve had through skating and through ice dance.”

READ: Gilles & Poirier skate to ice dance bronze at Milano Cortina 2026

This was the third Olympic Games for the pair, having finished seventh at Beijing 2022 and eighth at PyeongChang 2018. While the two’s performance in Milan will no doubt inspire another generation of Canadian ice dancers, Gilles said she hopes their journey also shows athletes that success doesn’t always come immediately.

“15 years, it can still be possible, and I think we’re there to show people that anything is possible,” said Gilles. “Just keep going after your dreams.”

The Canadians sat third following Monday’s rhythm dance, where they posted a score of 86.18, placing them behind only Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron of France and Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States.

In Wednesday’s final flight of the free dance portion of the event, Gilles and Poirier skated third following performances from Italian and British teams. Skating to the song “Vincent,” which the pair first used during the 2018-19 season, the duo had a near flawless performance. The two were visibly emotional following the skate, showing the pride they had in their performance.

“Seeing Paul get super emotional, like that doesn’t happen often,” said Gilles. “But again, that’s what it takes to have an Olympic moment like that.

“We left every stone unturned. 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.”

Gilles and Poirier earned a free dance score of 131.56, putting their overall total at 217.74. That pushed them into first place for the time being, guaranteeing a medal with two teams to go.

Chock and Bates skated to silver with an overall score of 224.39 and were just edged by Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron, who scored 225.82.

READ: Canadian ice dance teams all advance to final at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics

“I think we’re so proud of ourselves and what we’ve accomplished,” said Poirier. “The start of the season was really difficult and challenging for us, and I think a lot of moments throughout this season, you know, it kind of felt like we were taking on a giant in a lot of ways. I think especially after the Grand Prix final, we had to make a conscious decision each day to believe in ourselves, and to believe that what we wanted was possible and we had to keep feeding ourselves that belief every single day, even when it didn’t really feel real. But I think that is what allowed us to have a skate like that today at the Olympics.”

Gilles teamed up with Poirier in July 2011. They’ve had plenty of adversity to overcome over the years, which included Gilles being diagnosed with stage one ovarian cancer in 2023.

The two have enjoyed quite a bit of success on the international stage, most recently winning back-to-back silver medals at the ISU World Championships in 2024 and 2025. They won bronze medals at the event in 2023 and 2021. Now, they finally have an Olympic medal.

The bronze medal performance at Milano Cortina 2026 is Canada’s first medal in ice dance since PyeongChang 2018 when the legendary Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won gold, capping off a run of three straight Games with a medal.

Gilles and Poirier were one of three Canadian pairs skating in the ice dance competition. The duo of Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha finished 10th with a final score of 199.80 while Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac placed 14th with a final score of 187.18.

Lajoie and Lagha made their Olympic debut together at Beijing 2022 where they finished 13th. For Lauriault and Le Gac, this was their second Olympic Games – but their first with Team Canada. The two competed for France at PyeongChang 2018 where they placed 17th. They’ve been representing Canada since 2020.

“People are really connected to each other,” said le Gac about the Canadian team. “They share. They really want everybody to perform their best, but really in a fun way. We don’t feel more pressure because it’s the Olympics and it’s really like a nice environment and we’re really, really grateful and proud at the same time to be with such a big team as Canada.”