Paul Poirier keeps making our hearts melt and our faces beam with pride!
The Canadian ice dancer’s 2024 is off to an incredible start, beginning with his first ever ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships ice dance title in early February. Along with partner Piper Gilles, Poirier won his first title 11 years after first competing in the prestigious event.
The joy they were experiencing was palpable!
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To follow that up, Poirier spent Valentine’s Day with his gorgeous partner, Kevin, celebrating their three-year anniversary.
“With love,” indeed!
Though Poirier thrives as a member of a pair–athletically or romantically–he’s also a stunning solo artist. Just last week, he posted black and white stills from his latest photoshoot with the artist Ilich Mejia.
The shots are classy, refined and sexy. We’re especially partial to his bolo tie! 🤠
It was a unique 2023-24 season for Poirier and Gilles, who spent their summer performing in ice shows, and conveying the essence of the human psyche through their routines. For their free dance, the duo chose composer Ryuichi Sakamoto’s score for the 1992 film adaptation of Wuthering Heights, widely considered one of the greatest English novels ever written.
The book, which was published in 1847, is about a toxic love between the two main characters, Catherine and Heathcliff.
Poirier said he and Gilles were trying to explore the complex relationships that human beings can have with one another…especially when love and lust are involved.
“You can deeply love someone and deeply hate them at the same time. And the tension between those two emotions is really what we are trying to explore,” he explained in an interview.
When Poirier and Gilles ramped up for competition again in the fall, they won gold at the Skate Canada International. Then, they finished third in the 2023-24 Grand Prix Final, which was held in Beijing.
At the Canadian Championships in early January, they took home the national title.
Following the ISU Four Continents Championships, Poirier acknowledged his career is at an apex.
“This is a significant milestone in our career,” he said. “I think we can really be proud of how we skated. This week, we truly believed in ourselves. We skated like the champions we are.”
Poirier won his first medal on the international stage at the 2008 World Junior Championships, when he was just 17 years old. The Canadian publicly came out as gay in June 2021–along with two other figure skaters, including U.S. Olympic medalist Jason Brown.
In his coming out interview, Poirier spoke about how he’s come to appreciate the power of his platform, especially in regards to providing visibility for LGBTQ+ athletes.
He says it was one of his primary motivations for publicly coming out.
“Pride month is a really good opportunity to share a bit more about my story, how my sexuality has made me the person and the athlete that I am today, and also perhaps be a role model for so many young queer athletes who are growing up and not really sure how to navigate that as they go through the world of sport,” he told the Toronto-based magazine Glory.
Poirier and Gilles, who have skated together for the last decade, made their Olympic debuts at the 2018 Beijing Games. Though they didn’t medal, their outfits were show-stealing.
They wore bright orange costumes with gold sequins and rainbow-colored feathers–an apparent nod to Poirier competing in his first Olympics as an out gay man.
That doesn’t mean it’s always been easy for Poirier. He suffered an appendicitis at the start of 2023, which sidelined him from competition.
But now, the 32-year-old is fully recovered, and at the top of his game. He knows how to steal the show, whether he’s in front of the camera or on skates.
We are most certainly not complaining!
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