Gay ice dancer Paul Poirier looks to model a medal for the first time at the Milan Winter Olympics
Before competing in his fourth Games, Poirier and partner Piper Gilles brought a RuPaul soundtrack to the World Championships. The post Gay ice dancer Paul Poirier looks to model a medal for the first time at the Milan Winter Olympics appeared first on Outsports.
Mark
Name: Paul Poirier
Country: Canada
Sport: Ice Dancing
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Previous Olympic Experience: Vancouver 2010, PyeongChang 2018, Beijing 2022
Social Media: Instagram/TikTok
Who is Paul Poirier?
If you posed this question to Poirier himself, he would answer that he’s an introvert.
Which might come as a surprise for casual fans, considering that on numerous occasions he’s performed as an ice dancer before sold out arenas—and sometimes with millions of people watching on TV around the world.
But when Poirier takes the ice with dancing partner Piper Gilles, something special clicks and the two make magic.
Credit: Sergei Belski-Imagn Images
Since first teaming up in 2011, Poirier and Gilles have medaled four times at the World Championships and took home back-to-back silvers in 2024 and 2025.
“We’re really proud of what we accomplished this week,” Poirier said after their 2025 silver, “Both of our programs felt really strong, and we really feel, as we get to the culmination of the season, that the programs have grown into the programs that we dreamed they would be at the start of the season.”
One of those programs, incidentally, was a rhythm dance to a mashup of RuPaul’s “Supermodel” and Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy.” Not bad for an introvert.
Dancing to a chorus of “Sashay, chanté” was an inspired choice for Poirier, who came out publicly in a 2021 interview, both to visibly represent the gay community at the 2022 Olympics and push himself “to be more comfortable and bolder in my own activism.”
In subsequent years, Poirier has indeed been more visible as a gay athlete, including announcing his 2025 engagement to his boyfriend, Kevin, with a post on Instagram.
“We need to continuously change our narratives around sports and who belongs where,” Poirier told Outsports in 2022, “I think we still like to put people in boxes, and we like to put sports and activities in boxes, and who belongs where. And I don’t think we need to.”
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Paul Poirier at the Milan Winter Olympics
With former dancing partner Vanessa Crone, Poirier made his Olympics debut representing host nation Canada at the Vancouver 2010 Games and finished in 14th place.
Since pairing up on the ice with Gilles, the two have competed in PyeongChang 2018 and Beijing 2022, turning in eighth and seventh place finishes, respectively.
After finishing off the podium in Beijing, Poirier was pensive about the result.
“It’s really nice to have medals, but they don’t transform who you are as a person the way that living does. In the end, you have to make peace with what happens,” he said to The Varsity.
But after bouncing back with consecutive World Championships silvers, Poirier and Gilles have their sights set on winning an Olympic medal for the first time in Milan.
“It’s going to be a really competitive environment at the Games and that makes it exciting for us,” Poirier told olympics.com, “We’re athletes, we’re competitors, and we want to be competing amongst the best.”
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The post Gay ice dancer Paul Poirier looks to model a medal for the first time at the Milan Winter Olympics appeared first on Outsports.
