Team Canada won two gold medals at 2023 Skate Canada in Vancouver, British Columbia on Saturday. Paul Poirier of Ottawa, Ontario, and Piper Gilles of Toronto, Ontario won the gold medal in ice dance, and Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps of Vaudreuil-Dorion, Quebec won the gold medal in the pairs competition. The fact that Gilles won gold is significant because she just recently was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in May.
Gilles and Poirier won the gold medal with 219.01 points. Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson of Great Britain won the silver medal with 209.55 points. Allison Reed and Saulius Ambrulevicius of Lithuania won the bronze medal with 192.01 points. Gilles and Poirier reached the podium by 31.39 points over Oona and Gage Brown of the United States, who finished in fourth place with 187.62 points. Gilles and Poirier have now won four Skate Canada titles, as they won in 2019 in Kelowna, British Columbia, in 2021 in Vancouver, British Columbia, and in 2023 in Mississauga, Ontario.
Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps won the gold medal with 214.64 points. Maria Pavlova and Alexei Sviatchenko of Hungary won the silver medal with 187.78 points and Lucrezia Beccari and Matteo Guarise of Italy won the bronze medal with 181.42 pooints. Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps reached the podium by 35.03 points as Anastasia Golubeva and Hektor Giotopoulos Moore of Australia finished in fourth place with 179.61 points. The medals for Poirier, Gilles, Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps will give then confidence as they prepare for the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Milan/Cortina d’Ampezzo.
