THE PERFECT FINALE
Virtue and Moir knew they needed to be flawless to top French rivals
They came back for the perfect ending.
But in sport as in life, those exits don’t just happen, even to oncein-a-generation talents like theirs, especially in a discipline so vulnerable to the vagaries of judging allegiances.
So left wanting something more after silver in Sochi and after a needed respite from the mental and physical grind of training and competition, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir set up shop in Montreal and built an ice dance machine that would not fail them.
It was so thoughtfully constructed, its expert personnel hand-picked, its support systems and redundancies rock solid. All they had to do was skate, which is what they still love to do together after a 20-year partnership. And, quite frankly, there is nobody in the world who does it better with more innovation, athleticism and technical brilliance.
The Olympic gold medals they won Tuesday are emphatic symbols of their dominance here, but more significantly of their relentless pursuit of perfection.
For a year now, Moir has told anybody who would listen they had to be perfect to win their second Olympic gold. He knew how the judges were stacking this up, how the point differential between them and the French couple of Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, their training partners, was going to be razor thin. He got all that right.
Virtue and Moir led the French by 1.74 points after the short program.
On Tuesday, skating before Virtue and Moir hit the ice, Papadakis and Cizeron set a world record of 123.35 in the free skate, another of 205.28 in the overall score. The stage looked set for a French victory and the air was rife with hints of judging hijinx.
But Moir and Virtue snatched their fates from the judges’ hands and ensured the gold medals would be theirs. Their Moulin Rouge free dance seemed more powerful and more athletic than a low-key, classical and technically proficient French performance, but they finished a tick behind at 122.40. It was still enough to push Virtue and Moir to 206.07, the perfect ending.
“I don’t think perfection really exists, to be honest,” Moir said. “But we both said (afterward) that we wouldn’t want to go out and bet against that performance if we had to go do it again. That’s what we’ve been doing and that’s what we can be proud of with all four skates. It’s not a surprise.”
You don’t come back to have an average time. To miss anything. To have a forgettable Olympics. To blow the ending. They had the best time, they carried the flag into Pyeongchang, they helped carry the Canadians to team figure skating gold, they had the best two-dance total. They had the moment they saw in their minds and built with their team.
But they still weren’t sure they had beaten the French team until the numbers finally flashed on the screen.
“We were holding our breath, obviously, in the kiss and cry because we know what fantastic skaters they are; we know that they’re going to post a world record,” Moir said. “We thought that was a good enough skate to win us an Olympic title, but you never know in this sport, you never know.”
Especially after the French had a fashion faux pas in the short program, had to hang on for dear life and still finished 1.74 points in arrears.
“I did have a similar thought to that yesterday because it was tight and we felt like we kind of blew the roof off the arena yesterday,” Moir said. “But that’s the scoring system.”
And the French are great skaters. “We put a lot of work into it and it was a very great pleasure to be able to deliver two very great performances,” said Papadakis. “Today we did something that we barely think we could do. We never skated that way before. To do that in our first Olympics is something we’re very proud of.”
The discipline is theirs now; they will win the worlds, there is Olympic gold in their future. Virtue and Moir will eventually announce their retirements and step aside. They saved their best for last and their coaches were beaming.
“They skated the best they’ve ever skated in four events here, four times,” said Marie-France Dubreuil. “And I think a whole generation of skaters will be influenced by them and will be inspired by them.”
Who knows where Canada goes from here? The ice dancers will be joined by Patrick Chan and the pairs team of Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford on the show circuit. Happy retirees all. They took the torch and somebody will have to carry the momentum forward to ensure Canada keeps on winning Olympic figure skating medals.
... I think a whole generation of skaters will be influenced by them and will be inspired by them.