Virtue and Moir set record with short dance
GANGNEUNG, SOUTH KOREA It is not technically impossible to stage an ice dance competition that isn’t won by either Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada or Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France.
It just seems that way. Their presence on the podium is as constant in ice dance as sequins, feathers, Latin beats and plunging male necklines.
Virtue and Moir lead after the Olympic short program on Monday, after scoring a world record 83.67 points, but Papadakis and Cizeron are right on their heels, with 81.93, relegated by a twizzling mishap. It’s not clear whether Papadakis’s wardrobe malfunction at the end of the program affected the score.
It did have an effect in the arena and the mixed zone, where everyone was treated to a slow-motion replay. That’s the way it goes in ice dance, where costumes are supposed to cover 40 per cent of the athlete’s upper bodies. But they aren’t always as successful on that point as they are with their required elements.
The last major competition that included at least one of those two teams but was won by somebody else was the 2014 Grand Prix Final in Barcelona. Canadians Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje were victorious back then. They were eighth here on Monday. The other Canadian dance team of Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier were ninth.
The free dance goes Tuesday.