Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier take first Four Continents ice dance title in Shanghai – ‘Such a big milestone’

Canadian ice dancers Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier delivered on their status as favourites to capture the Four Continents title in Shanghai.

Gilles and Poirier took a convincing victory with a total of 214.36 points.

Their Wuthering Heights dance sealed the deal and scored 128.87 to wrap up their maiden title at the event.

“I think we’re really pleased. It’s such a big milestone in our career, so I think we’re really proud of ourselves to be able to win a competition of this calibre at this point in our career,” Poirier said.

“This is our third time in China this season and this was so far the best performance.”

There was a Canadian one-two in China as Gilles and Poirier’s team-mates Laurence Fournier-Beaudry and Nikolaj Soerensen repeated as silver medallists.

They notched a season’s best score of 125.52 in their ‘Notre Dame de Paris’ routine to finish second with 207.54.

“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.” Fournier Beaudry said.

USA’s Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko completed the podium.