Gilles and Poirier find peace with a medal moment a lifetime in the making

Chris Jones reports from Milan.

It’s impossible to pinpoint where the Olympic journey started for Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, Canada’s ice dance champions. It had a thousand starting points.

The first time they had skates laced onto their tiny feet was a start. So was the first time a coach saw something promising in them, and the first time they won a trophy and decided they wanted to win more. The first time they met, in 2011, was a start. The first time they danced together was another.

But there will only ever be one end, indisputable in more ways than one.

It came here, at the Milano Ice Skating Arena, on the podium that has eluded them through two previous Olympics and 15 years together, with bronze medals around their necks.

“It’s been such a rewarding journey,” Poirier said, “not necessarily rewarding in all the ways that we anticipated, but that’s what makes life so beautiful, that’s what makes sports so beautiful. It takes you on a road you can’t anticipate.”

Canadians Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier receive Olympic bronze medals

Ice dance is beautifully ruthless, with a theatrical process of relegation.

Twenty teams skated on Wednesday night, in reverse order of their placing after Monday’s rhythm dance. A pair of white armchairs waited for the team with a hold, however briefly, on first place. To the side of the chairs, four white cubes had been set up for the second- and third-place teams.

As the night continued and better-ranked teams finished their programs with higher scores, team after team was pushed out of the chairs, over to the cubes, and then off the cubes, before they were exiled behind a blue curtain.

Lately, ice dance has been especially ruthless to Gilles and Poirier. At December’s Grand