Canadian ice dancer Piper Gilles learned on her 31st birthday, in January 2023, that the tumor removed weeks earlier had been stage 1 ovarian cancer. She needed no chemotherapy and was back on the ice within weeks. In February 2026, she and Paul Poirier won ice dance bronze at the Milano Cortina Olympics, their first Olympic medal after three Games together.
Key takeaways
- Gilles and Poirier won Olympic bronze in Milan with 217.74 points, skating their "Vincent" free dance, at their third Olympics together.
- Gilles had surgery in December 2022 and learned on January 16, 2023, her 31st birthday, that the tumor had been stage 1 ovarian cancer. She didn't need chemotherapy.
- Her mother, Bonnie, died of glioblastoma in May 2018, a few months after Piper's first Olympics.
- Since Milan, the pair have won a third straight world silver and are sitting out the 2026-27 Grand Prix season, without announcing a retirement.
Piper Gilles has been one of the best-known ice dancers in the world for more than a decade, but the medal she won in Milan meant more than most. In the three years before it, she'd been through surgery and a cancer diagnosis, five years after losing her mother to cancer. This is her story, told from what she and the people around her have said in public.
The night in Milan
The Olympic free dance was skated on Wednesday, February 11, 2026, at the Milano Ice Skating Arena. Gilles and Poirier went into it third, just 0.71 points ahead of Britain's Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson, so one slip could have cost them the podium.
They skated "Vincent", their free dance to Govardo's cover of the Don McLean song, a program they first skated in the 2018-19 season and brought back for the Olympics. Fear and Gibson had an error on their twizzles and dropped to seventh, and Gilles and Poirier's 131.56 in the free dance took them to 217.74 and into first place, with two teams still to skate.
France's Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron won gold with 225.82, and Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates took silver with 224.39. For Gilles and Poirier it was a first Olympic medal at their third Games together, and Canada's first Olympic figure skating medal since 2018. Our roundup of figure skating at the 2026 Olympics covers the rest of the Games.
Afterward, Gilles talked about her diagnosis and what she'd say to anyone going through a dark time. "If you continue to lead with your heart, anything can happen," she said, in remarks reported by AFP.
A skating family
Gilles was born on January 16, 1992, in Rockford, Illinois, into a family of skaters. Her twin sister, Alexe, skated singles and won the 2008 U.S. junior title, and their older brother, Todd, competed in ice dance.
Piper went the ice dance route too. As a junior she skated for the United States, first with Timothy McKernan and then with Zachary Donohue, and she and Donohue won junior bronze at the 2009 U.S. Championships.
Fifteen years with Paul Poirier
In July 2011, Gilles teamed up with Canadian ice dancer Paul Poirier and switched to skating for Canada. Her mother and grandmother are Canadian, and she became a Canadian citizen on December 17, 2013.
Their first Olympic chance slipped away when Poirier fractured and dislocated his right ankle in May 2013, and they missed the team for Sochi 2014. They made their Olympic debut at PyeongChang 2018 and finished eighth, then came seventh at Beijing 2022.
Along the way they built a name for inventive programs. The ISU took a partial step sequence from their 2015-16 short dance and made it a new pattern dance, the Maple Leaf March. The table shows what they'd won together by the end of the 2025-26 season.
| Event | Results |
|---|---|
| Olympic Games | 8th in 2018, 7th in 2022, bronze in 2026 |
| World Championships | Bronze in 2021 and 2023, silver in 2024, 2025 and 2026 |
| Four Continents Championships | Gold in 2024 and 2025 |
| Grand Prix Final | Gold in the 2022-23 season |
| Canadian Championships | Champions in 2020, 2022, 2024, 2025 and 2026 |
| Milan 2026 scores | 131.56 in the free dance, 217.74 in total |
Losing her mother
Gilles's mother, Bonnie, was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer, in March 2017, the season before the PyeongChang Olympics. By the time of the Games her cancer had advanced, and she couldn't be there for her daughter's Olympic debut.
Bonnie died in May 2018, a few months after the Games. Gilles has spoken openly about her mother's illness ever since, and in 2019 she was national spokesperson for the Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada's Brain Tumour Walk in Toronto.
The next season, she and Poirier debuted "Vincent", the free dance that would carry them to an Olympic medal seven years later. In her Toronto Life memoir, she said her skating has been shaped by her mother's cancer and her own.
The diagnosis
In October 2022, at the start of the season, Gilles began to feel unwell, with fatigue, nausea and pain on her left side. That fall, doctors found a growth on her left ovary. She and Poirier kept competing, winning Skate Canada International, the Grand Prix of Espoo and, in December, the Grand Prix Final.
On December 19, 2022, she had surgery to remove it, which included her left ovary, and her appendix was taken out as a precaution because doctors weren't yet sure what kind of tumor it was. On January 16, 2023, her 31st birthday, she learned it had been stage 1 ovarian cancer.
After the surgery, her doctor told her she wouldn't need chemotherapy and could keep skating. She has needed only regular follow-up checks since.
Coming back
Gilles and Poirier withdrew from the 2023 Canadian Championships and the Four Continents Championships while she recovered. At the time, her absence was put down to appendix surgery, because she chose to keep the cancer private so it wouldn't distract the team.
She was back on the ice in February 2023, building up gradually while wearing a pregnancy compression belt, a detail she shared with Toronto Life. In late March, a few months after her surgery, she and Poirier won bronze at the World Championships in Saitama, Japan.
In May 2023, the day before World Ovarian Cancer Day, she shared her diagnosis in a video on Instagram. She has said it took about two and a half years to feel like herself again, and in the 2026 Netflix series Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing she said she's cancer-free.
The seasons that followed were among their best. They won Four Continents in 2024 and 2025, took world silver in Montreal in 2024 after winning the free dance there, and won world silver again in Boston in 2025.
After the Olympics
In March 2026, at the World Championships in Prague, Gilles and Poirier won silver again, their third world silver in a row and their fifth world medal. They skated their "Wuthering Heights" free dance there, a program they had retired after the 2023-24 season.
In June, they weren't among Canada's Grand Prix entries for the 2026-27 season, and Gilles said on Instagram that they were choosing to give their bodies and minds time to rest and reset. In July, Poirier joined Skate Canada's board of directors. Neither has announced a retirement.
Why her story stays with us
Most of us will never skate an Olympic free dance, but plenty of adult skaters know what it's like to come back to the ice after an illness, an operation or a loss. Gilles came back slowly, with a compression belt and a lot of patience, and she's been honest that it took years, not weeks, to feel like herself.
She was 31 when she was diagnosed and 34 when she stood on the Olympic podium. If you're returning after time away, our guide to coming back to figure skating as an adult has ideas for easing in, and your doctor is the right person to say when you're ready.
If something doesn't feel right
Gilles has used her story to encourage people not to brush off symptoms. The CDC lists possible signs of ovarian cancer as pelvic or abdominal pain or pressure, back pain, bloating, feeling full quickly and changes in bathroom habits, and advises seeing a doctor if any of them last two weeks or longer and aren't normal for you. Unusual vaginal bleeding is a reason to see a doctor right away.
Sources
We checked every fact in this story in October 2026 through web search, reading each source as it appeared in search results, because most of these sites couldn't be opened directly. Where outlets disagreed, we left the detail out.
- Team Canada (olympic.ca), "Gilles & Poirier skate to ice dance bronze at Milano Cortina 2026" (February 11, 2026), and its athlete profiles of Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier: standings, scores, "Vincent", Poirier's 2013 injury, Gilles's citizenship and the Maple Leaf March.
- The Canadian Press, via CP24 and CBC Sports, Olympic ice dance reports (February 11, 2026), and AFP, via France 24 (February 12, 2026): the free dance, Fear and Gibson's error, Canada's first figure skating medal since 2018 and Gilles's quote.
- CBC Sports and TSN, "Figure skater Piper Gilles reveals she has been treated for Stage 1 ovarian cancer" (May 2023): the diagnosis, the withdrawals and the Instagram announcement.
- The Globe and Mail, "'This isn't a poor-me story': Olympian Piper Gilles opens up about her frightening experience with ovarian cancer": the surgery date and the appendix.
- Toronto Life, Piper Gilles's memoir as told to Teagan Sliz (February 4, 2026), and TODAY, "Skater Piper Gilles Wins Olympic Medal After Surviving Ovarian Cancer" (February 2026): her birthday diagnosis, her return to the ice and the compression belt.
- NBC Sports, "Ice dancer Piper Gilles cancer-free after 'roller coaster' six months", and the University of Colorado Anschutz Cancer Center: her symptoms and treatment.
- Olympics.com athlete profile (Beijing 2022), the Toronto Star (October 2018) and the Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada, "Piper's story": her mother's illness and the 2019 Brain Tumour Walk.
- Netflix and Olympics.com, Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing (released February 1, 2026): Gilles's update on her health.
- Skate Canada, release on the 2026 ISU World Championships (March 28, 2026), and CBC Sports on the 2026-27 Grand Prix assignments (June 2026) and Poirier's board appointment (July 23, 2026).
- Wikipedia, entries for Piper Gilles and Alexe Gilles, cross-checked against the sources above: family, junior results and team titles.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Symptoms of Ovarian Cancer.
