Canadian ice dancers Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier won the gold medal Friday at the Nebelhorn Trophy figure skating compeition in Germany, marking their first international victory since they joined forces in 2011.

They scored 194.12 with the best scores in both the short dance and free dance. Rachel Parsons and Michael Parsons of the United States were second at 180.95, while Christine Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko were third with 177.49.

"This (free dance) program is very special to us," said Poirier. "We felt grateful that the artist was here to see the first performance. As much as there were some small technical issues I think we were really able to capture the emotional part of the piece today."

"We are finally learning to be that top team," Gilles said. "It's taken a lot of difficult lessons to finally figure out how we should skate. We're finally having that confidence to go out and rely on our training and just be us."

The duo's free dance was skated to Don McLean's "Vincent."