At figure skating worlds, a U.S.-Canada ice dance story adds a chapter
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A familiar sight: Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the U.S. (left) taking a medalists lap of honor with Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Canada, this one at the 2025 Four Continents Championships, where the Canadians won and U.S. couple was second. (ISU photo)
The two couples have both been in the same ice dance universe for 14 seasons, with each moving at a different trajectory and speed toward the shiny medals that once seemed distant.
One team, Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States, got there faster and collected more medals of all colors and more of the most glittering.
Yet as they and rivals Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Canada home in on the biggest and brightest medal of all, an Olympic gold, the gap between the two couples has narrowed to the point that who stands on the top step of the podium at the 2026 Winter Games is almost impossible to predict.
Even the results of the 2025 World Championships that began Wednesday in Boston likely will not be enough to make one couple the decisive favorite next year in Milan, Italy.
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