By Canadian Press

Gilles and Poirier collect second bronze this season ISU Grand Prix

Nov 24, 2018 | 2:04 PM

GRENOBLE, France — Ice dancers Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Toronto earned a second bronze medal this season on the ISU Grand Prix figure skating circuit, finishing third at the Internationaux de France on Saturday.

World champions Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France took the gold with 216.78 points, Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov of Russia were second at 200.78 and Gilles and Poirier followed at 188.74

The Canadians were also third at Skate Canada earlier this month.

“It was one of those free dances we had to fight through,” said Poirier. “We didn’t make any errors which we’re really pleased with. We had to focus on each element one at a time.”

The result, however, wasn’t enough to qualify for the Grand Prix Final next month in Vancouver.

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“We are disappointed not to qualify for the final,” Poirier said. “We were at some very tough events with deep fields.”

In pairs, Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres of France took the gold with Tarah Kayne and Danny O’Shea of the U.S. second and Aleksandra Boikova and Dmitrii Kozlovskii of Russia third.

Camille Ruest of Rimouski, Que., and Andrew Wolfe of Calgary remained fifth.

“We’ve improved a lot of elements since our last competition,” said Ruest. “It was a solid week for us and we are happy with both of our programs.”

In men’s competition, world champion Nathan Chen led the U.S. to a 1-2 finish with Jason Brown second and Alexander Samarin of Russia third.

Nicolas Nadeau of Blainville, Que., was 11th after the short program Friday. He withdrew from the free skate due to a back injury suffered in the warm up for the short on Friday.

The Canadian Press