Canadian ice dance darlings Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir are going out on top, ending their illustrious career as the most decorated figure skaters in Olympic history.
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They sure made it a memorable one. “They opened the window for North American ice dancers”, said Zueva, who coached them from 2005 to 2014.
The French duo are no strangers to success on the big stage having won a pair of world championships in Virtue and Moir’s absence and defeating the Canadians in last December’s Grand Prix Final.
“They really inspire us to do our best and work as hard as they can’t to someday be as good as they are”, she said. It’s unbelievable. I am so proud of the way we fought through this week and the season. They also have a team silver from Sochi and gold at Pyeongchang, won last week.
Moir said this was a different kind of victory from the pair’s gold in Vancouver.
They briefly retired after Sochi, but decided a few years ago to compete in one more Olympics.
Camille Dethomasis, 15, is an ice dancer with at the Ilderton Skating Club. “We were committed to this, we wanted to be an integral part of the team, we wanted to contribute as best we could”.
With the fifth Olympic medal in hand, they also broke the record of four medals by the Swede Gillis and Russian Evgeniy Plushenko in figure skating. American siblings Alex and Maia Shibutani finished third with 192.59.
They made a comeback late in 2016 and powered to a number of world records with only one defeat along the way.
Alex said the experience fulfilled their dreams. “I would never even think about skating with somebody else”. “We did our best and we have nothing to regret”, said Papadakis.
You make that boy and girl a team, give them the years of training with increasingly high-calibre coaching, a deep connection, the ability to overcome pain and injury and the will to continue – even after almost all of their old rivals have called it quits. But a rare and stunning fall entering their combination spin was enough to damage an otherwise attractive performance to “Imagine” that still drew an emotional applause.
“You can be a woman, you can have kids and you can win Olympic medals”, she told the media after finishing second to Canada’s Cassie Sharpe in the women’s ski halfpipe final in Pyeongchang. Their winning ice dance was put to music from the film “Moulin Rouge”. As they do before every competitive skate, the two hugged with eyes closed before the dance, reports Canadian Press.
Papadakis and Cizeron were the new rivals on the scene, bringing a fresh, contemporary style that had won the judges over. They suffered a wardrobe malfunction in their run Monday, frazzling them and costing points.
They are the greatest ice dance team ever.
With the fear of exposure not an issue, Papadakis and Cizeron logged a tremendous 123.35 to give them 205.28 overall, their personal best.
Their stirring free dance performance to Gustav Mahler’s “Symphony No. 5”, which included a breathtaking lift known as The Goose, catapulted them to the top of the podium in their Olympic debut. “You sit back and enjoy”.
The French rose to the occasion, to the point where you wondered if Virtue and Moir had enough points in their program to add up.
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Not to mention their exemplary careers.
