Ice dancers Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, gold medalists at last month’s ISU Grand Prix Final, will miss next week’s Canadian Figure Skating Championships after Gilles suffered an appendectomy.
Gilles and Poirier had the best season of their careers, winning both their Grand Prix assignments and the final in Turin, Italy.
Gilles, 30, and Poirier, 31, won bronze at the 2021 world championships. They had considered retiring after finishing seventh at the Beijing Olympics last year, but after a long off-season break, they decided to come back.
Skate Canada also announced that 2017 world championship bronze medalist Gabrielle Daleman, along with ice dancers Alicia Fabbri and Paul Ayer and pair team Lori-Ann Matte and Thierry Ferland will miss the event in reason for injury.
Keegan Messing will be looking for men’s singles gold in what is expected to be his last Canadian national appearance. He plans to retire after this season. Beijing Olympian Madeline Schizas is a headliner in women’s singles.
French Grand Prix winners Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps will be looking to win their first national title, while NHK Trophy winners Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Soerensen will battle it out for first place in the ice dance.
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