GATINEAU — Stephen Gogolev is one step closer to the Olympic Games.
The 21-year-old from Toronto captured his first national title Saturday at the Canadian figure skating championships.
Skating to “Piano Concerto No. 2” by Sergei Rachmaninov, Gogolev landed two quad jumps to score 175.90 points in his free program, pushing his total to 275.50 after a stellar short program Friday.
Roman Sadovsky, the 2025 men’s champion, claimed the silver medal with 255.10 points, climbing to second from fourth after the short program. The 26-year-old from Vaughan, Ont., broke down in tears at the end of an emotional skate.
Aleksa Rakic of New Westminster, B.C., took bronze (246.02).
Gogolev and Sadovsky arrived as co-favourites for their fifth head-to-head competition this season.
The matchup marked their final showdown with Canada’s one men’s singles spot in February’s Milan Cortina Winter Games on the line.
The full Olympic figure skating team will be announced Sunday evening. Skate Canada’s selection is not based solely on results at nationals, but on a body of work over the past couple seasons.
But Gogolev all but confirmed his place after entering the event with the highest total international score among Canadian men this season.
Earlier Saturday, Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier led after the rhythm dance.
The four-time national champions scored 93.11 points — setting a personal best at nationals — to RuPaul’s “Supermodel (You Better Work)” at Centre Slush Puppie, where they received a standing ovation.
“We just skated like we were at home,” Gilles said. “We just treated this run-through basically as a home run-through, and I think all the details and all the connection points that we’ve been working on over the last few weeks really felt like it was coming to life.
“Then hearing the crowd kind of interact with us a little bit, hype us up a bit, it was so special.”
Gilles and Poirier, who were silver medallists in the last two world championships, will compete in their third Olympics.
Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha, last year’s silver medallists at the Canadian championships, sat second with 86.93.
Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac were third with 78.64, only 0.59 ahead of Alicia Fabbri and Paul Ayer in a battle for Canada’s last Olympic spot. The country holds three ice dance entries for Milan.
“By this time of the season, everybody is at the peak of performance, so you expect people to be that close,” Le Gac said. “We were expecting a good competition.”
Ayer and Fabbri led Lauriault and Le Gac by just 0.44 points after the rhythm dance at last year’s nationals before finishing third to make Canada’s world championship team.
“We knew it would come down to the free dance,” Ayer said. “Either way it went.”
“It makes it fun, too,” added Fabbri. “Sometimes you can be like, ‘Oh, we’re in front, or we’re too much back.’ But it’s almost like a fresh start tomorrow. We’ll just do our best and see what happens.”
The women’s short program was scheduled for later Saturday, followed by the pairs free skate.
Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps, who won world championship gold in 2024, ranked first in pairs after Friday’s short program.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 10, 2026.
Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press
