Canadians Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier are trying to repeat as ice dance champions at the Grand Prix Final.
With Canada hosting figure skating's biggest annual event for the first time in 11 years, the hope is that home ice leads to more medals.Ice dancers Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier were the only Canadians to win a medal at last year's figure skating world championships. The World Figure Skating Championships begin Wednesday at the Bell Centre in Montreal, the first Canadian city to host the event since London, Ont., in 2013.
Since the end of that season, Canadian figure skaters have won just three medals at the world championships — all bronze — and they were shut out at the 2022 Olympics in Beijing. The drop-off is especially stark in the singles events, where no Canadian has reached a major podium since Kaetlyn Osmond won the women's gold at the depleted post-Olympic worlds in 2018.
The top two contenders are the ice dance duo of Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier and the pairs team of Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps. Each won both of their regular-season starts on the Grand Prix tour before taking bronze at the exclusive Grand Prix Final in December and gold at last month's Four Continents Championships .
Canada's other medal hopefuls include ice dancers Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha, who claimed two silvers on the Grand Prix circuit this season before placing sixth out of six at the Final; and pairs skaters Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud, who won a gold and a silver before finishing sixth at the Final.
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