Canada sits fifth in Olympic figure skating team event after first three segments

Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Canada react to their scores after competing during the figure skating ice dance team event at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

MILAN — Madeline Schizas skated off the Olympic ice with a giant smile across her face.

That expression quickly flipped in the kiss-and-cry when the scores appeared on the screen.

Schizas punched the ice in excitement as her Canadian teammates celebrated in a rinkside box after delivering what she believed was a stellar skate in the Olympic team event Friday at the Milan Cortina Games, hours before the opening ceremony.

Skating to her “Lion King” routine, the energetic 22-year-old from Oakville, Ont., landed three triple jumps before a raucous crowd at Milano Ice Skating Arena, but an under-rotation proved costly.

She scored 64.97 points — roughly 1.5 below her season’s best — to place sixth in the women’s short program.

As a result, Canada slipped from fourth to fifth in the team standings after three segments.

“I skated really well. I skated as well as I could have, so I’m really happy with my performance,” said Schizas, who hadn’t yet seen the judging breakdown. “I’m just curious to see what I could have done better today.

“(The jumps) all felt OK, so I am not really sure if something was called or not.”

Canada finished with 19 points after the first day of competition. The United States, led by three-time world ice dance champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates, topped the standings with 25 points, followed by Japan with 23 and Italy with 22.

Georgia ranked fourth with 20, while France trailed Canada by two points in sixth.

The team event continues with the men’s short program Saturday evening. The top five countries after the short programs advance to the final in the 10-team event, which wraps up Sunday.

Schizas’s coach, Nancy Lemaire, said she was “a little bit” surprised by her score but chalked it up to the two-point deduction for coming up a quarter-rotation short on the triple-toe loop at the end of a combination.

“I think it could have been 67, but that would have been the difference,” Lemaire said. “And that’s a field of play call that you don’t really have control over.

“I don’t think she really needs to change anything. Just keep being aggressive, be proud of how she did, and come back in the long.”

Schizas famously produced two standout programs in Canada’s fourth-place finish at the 2022 Beijing Games.

Her return to the Olympic stage began with an unusual hiccup when the first four seconds of her music failed to play over the arena’s loudspeakers.

She skated over to the referee and requested a restart because of the malfunction, something she said is common at smaller events.

“I couldn’t have controlled how they played the music, so I’m glad I did because our whole team heard the error and I was entitled to a re-skate,” the four-time Canadian champion said, adding she did not feel unnerved.

Earlier Friday, Toronto’s Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, of Unionville, Ont., scored a season’s best 85.79 points in their campy rhythm dance to “Supermodel” by RuPaul, but placed fourth in the team event’s first competition.

“It’s our season’s best so far,” said Gilles, who added they would evaluate whether or not to skip Saturday’s free dance — should Canada qualify — Friday night.

“I think we’ll be continuing to push a little bit more going into the individual (event), but again, we’re very, very pleased with what we put down today.”

Gilles and Poirier, silver medallists at the past two world championships, finished 1.06 points behind Great Britain’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson.

Chock and Bates led the field with 91.06 points, while the French team of former Canadian skater Laurence Fournier Beaudry and reigning Olympic champion Guillaume Cizeron was second with 89.98.

All three top teams train at the powerhouse Ice Academy of Montreal.

In pairs, Trennt Michaud of Trenton, Ont., and Lia Pereira of Milton, Ont. — replacing former world champions Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps — finished fourth with 68.24 points in their Olympic debut.

Michaud and Pereira expect to compete in the long program but were a late addition to the short program after the 42-year-old Stellato-Dudek withdrew following a training accident in Quebec. She and Deschamps have not yet pulled out of the individual pairs event, which begins Feb. 15.

“It just gives us motivation and we just had to skate for them,” Michaud said. “We’re going to do that again on Sunday and just have them in our thoughts.

“A little extra motivation for not just ourselves, but the rest of Team Canada as well.”

Canada — then spearheaded by ice dance greats Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir — won the team event gold medal at the 2018 Games.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 6, 2026.

Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press