By Tyler ErzbergerShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberIn the world of figure skating, the difference between a gold medal and watching from the stands during the podium ceremony can be a single point.
On Monday, during the rhythm dance portion of the ice dance competition at the Winter Olympic Games in Milan, Italy, that was never more apparent than in one of the most impressive maneuvers so far seen at the event.
And it wasn't even planned.
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Canadian ice dance duo Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier are currently in third place, going into the free dance section of the medal competition in a few days. They are behind three-time world champions USA's Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who are in second, and France's Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron, sitting in the gold medal spot.
But Gilles and Poirier would not be in that position if it weren't for Gilles's millisecond thinking and skill in saving them from a point deduction.
In a scene you need to rewatch multiple times to see the brilliance of Gilles, the two are intertwined on the ice as Poirier lifts her up onto his shoulders as they spin around the surface. As they execute the maneuver, Poirier's cuff from his outfit gets caught in his partner's tights, ripping it off.
If that piece of costume falls onto the ice, that is an instant point taken off their score. If that happens, their current spot on the podium gets dropped down to the team behind them.
Instead, though, Gilles thinks on -- well, off -- her feet and grabs the cuff, placing it behind her back as the two present their smiling faces to the judges.
At a time in figure skating when quadruple jumps and physics-defying moves are becoming the norm for winning an Olympic medal, Gilles and Poirier showed that sometimes it can come down to a split-second wardrobe malfunction, saved by ingenuity.
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