WINTER OLYMPICS
Canadian figure skaters make history
CANADIAN stars Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir have won the gold medal in ice dancing at the PyeongChang Games, becoming the most decorated figure skaters in Olympic history.
Virtue and Moir scored a personal-best 122.40 points for a record 206.07 total, pushing them past training partners and close friends Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron in a riveting competition.
The French couple broke their own record for a free skate with 123.35 points to their performance of Moonlight Son- ata. Their total of 205.28 points, also briefly a record, meant Virtue and Moir needed to top their own best performance by 3.28 points when they took the ice to the music of Moulin Rouge right after them. They accomplished it with room to spare.
It’s the second gold medal of the PyeongChang Games for Virtue and Moir, who were instrumental in helping Canada win the team event.
It was their third gold overall after winning their home Olympics in Vancouver in 2010 and their fifth overall after two silver medals at the Sochi Games.
The total broke a tie with Russia’s Evgeni Plushenko and Sweden’s Gillis Grafstrom for most medals in figure skating and they tied the record for gold medals shared by Grafstrom, Sonja Henie of Norway and Irina Rodnina of the Soviet Union.
“It definitely feels like we are close to the end of our career and we are very proud of this,” Moir said. “We came back to win the second gold medal, that was the goal.
“This was a very intense competition and we’re happy the way things turned out for us. We have the greatest respect for the French team and they skated so well, and they push us to be at our best.”
The US was assured of an ice dance medal when Maia and Alex Shibutani, who helped win team bronze, laid down their best performance of the season. They trailed teammates Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue by twohundredths of a point after the short dance and their free dance allowed them to make up the difference.