Two Canadian teams defending medals feel confident heading into figure skating worlds

It may have been a bit of a roller coaster season thus far for two of Canada’s top figure skating teams, but both are looking to ride some momentum into the 2025 ISU World Figure Skating Championships that start on Wednesday. 

Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps head to Boston as the reigning world pairs champions. Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier are three-time world medallists in ice dance who took silver last year. 

READ: Figure skaters set out to secure Olympic quota spots for Canada at world championships

While neither duo has experienced smooth sailing in the year since those career highs, both feel confident in their abilities to perform at the most pressure-packed competition of the season. 

Stellato-Dudek & Deschamps happy to finally be healthy

“Every year is like climbing a different mountain and this year has had a lot of treacherous obstacles in our way that we were not expecting,” Stellato-Dudek told media during a pre-worlds conference call. 

Indeed, how their season has played out so far is completely different from what they experienced en route to the world title on home ice in Montreal a year ago. They did win both of their Grand Prix events in the fall, but struggled to put together clean short and long programs at the same competition. 

They had to withdraw from the Grand Prix Final in December after Deschamps came down with a fever that lasted four days. He was unable to train properly for several weeks, which impacted their preparation for the national championships in January. They won their third straight title, but on the strength of their short program after placing second in the free skate.

“Last year we had no illnesses. We had no injuries. This year it’s been like sickness after injury after sickness after injury,” said Stellato-Dudek. 

They had hoped to be fully healthy at the ISU Four Continents Championships in late February, but it was not to be. Stellato-Dudek suffered a hematoma and bone bruise when she fell right onto her glutes in a practice session, preventing her from doing jumps and throws in the week before they flew to Seoul. 

“So that was its own challenge, gearing up to go there and keeping the courage and the confidence that I could still do it,” she explained, mentioning she was “terrified” to try a triple toe because she didn’t know how much it would hurt. After the first attempt, she decided she could deal with the pain. 

But her jumps weren’t the only things affected. She struggled to hit the right position in the back outside death spiral, a required element in this year’s short program. They got a lower level of difficulty on it, and thus a lower score, than they had all season. 

That “very, very messy” short program at Four Continents put them in fourth place. But that “worst case scenario” also made it easier for them to approach the free skate with a more relaxed mindset, which resulted in their best long program of the season, the silver medal, and an important lesson learned. 

“We’ve been trying to utilize that type of freeness and having that freedom in practice as well in the runthroughs. Because as we’ve been saying, practice all year has been going really well. It’s been the competitions that have been a little bit harder for us. So, at some point, it has to translate and maybe we just needed to relax a little bit, like we were in the free program at Four Continents in order for that to occur,” she continued. 

“Just let it go, just let the skating happen,” added Deschamps. 

They’re also mindful of just letting the results happen, recognizing that they can’t control how their competitors perform. 

“For us, the positioning will end up, as always, just a bonus. In reality, what we really want for us is just to go out there and be proud of what we’re doing and then that will end up putting us where we need to be. We want to do the best, and if it’s not, if we’re happy with what we’ve done, then we’ll be happy. And then if we want to do better next year, in case we’re not winning or whatever, then we’ll sit, see what we need to do to get better, get more points,” said Deschamps. 

“If we’ve done two really good programs, that’s going to feel like we won anyway,” added Stellato-Dudek. “Whatever the placement ends up being, we’ll work for next year to improve what we can, but really it’s about getting off the ice and being content with yourself, which we have not been able to do in both programs yet all season.”

Gilles & Poirier rested and ready to continue their roll 

Heading into their 12th world championships together, Gilles and Poirier have experienced just about everything. But this season presented them with challenges they hadn’t encountered in recent years. 

Things started off well with a win at Skate Canada International. But a fall in the free dance at Finlandia Trophy kept them off the top step of the podium at a Grand Prix event for the first time since 2021. There was more tough luck at the Grand Prix Final when a fall in the rhythm dance took them out of medal contention. 

After their unexpected fifth-place finish, they finally found the time to really look at how they were going about things. 

“I think the way that our season was set up, we were kind of running around and didn’t have time to develop the programs the way that we wanted to. So we really had time after the Grand Prix to take a proper break and also just take some time to make some adjustments to the programs and expand them where they needed to be expanded,” said Poirier, noting that they had a much earlier start to this season compared to the two prior when they didn’t begin working on programs until the middle of the summer. That change made them “quite tired” by mid-December. 

“I think more than anything, it’s been nice to have a little bit more space between the events to rest and take care of ourselves,” Poirier added. 

READ: Gilles & Poirier aim to tango to the top before dancing onwards to 2026 Winter Olympics

They won their fourth national title in January in dominant fashion and then had four weeks to prepare for the Four Continents where they faced the two-time reigning world champions, Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States, and came away with the gold medal. 

That result had the figure skating fandom buzzing as it indicated that the ice dance event at the world championships would perhaps not be as predictable as many believed it would.  

READ: Gilles & Poirier defend Four Continents title

“We’ve learned a lot coming out of nationals, going into Four Continents,” said Gilles, noting that they had a similar four-week window to prepare for the worlds and tried to do the same number of runthroughs. “We have really just mimicked what we did there because we felt confident and strong and we felt like by the time we got to Four Continents we were rested and ready to push. So we’ve had a few tough weeks, a few kind of easier weeks, and a few extra days off to just make sure that our body [is] where it should be at worlds.” 

But they’re also relying on everything a decade-plus skating together has brought them. 

“We’ve learned over the years that being trained is important, but not over training is even more important. Many years we’ve gone into worlds and we’re overtrained and haven’t skated our best because we felt dead by the time we got there. So I think we’re really confident in the preparation that we have for this event this time,” said Gilles. 

They’re also looking forward to competing in Boston again. When the city last hosted the world championships in 2016, Gilles and Poirier experienced a breakthrough moment in their careers, finishing fifth in what was then called the short dance. 

“It’s kind of fun to be able to kind of envision a special moment like that and hope to create another memorable moment there,” said Gilles.

Competition at the 2025 ISU World Figure Skating Championships begins Wednesday, March 26 and runs through Saturday, March 29.