A LABOUR OF LOVE

Olympics in the best shape of your life – mentally, physically and emotionally. You’re on top of your game, and when you’re given the opportunity to compete at the Olympics, you compete as much as possible, because it won’t happen again, for me.”

She and Radford, like Virtue and Moir and Chan, are retiring after these Games.

Duhamel and Radford nailed first. Chan struggled through a tough short program, but turned in a superb long one to grab another first place and the big points which go with it. Osmond, in the short, and Daleman, in the long, got a third, and before Virtue and Moir even got on the ice, the team had enough points that the reigning world dance couple practically could have stayed on the couch eating bonbons and Canada still would have got the gold.

Instead, of course, they put on the usual magnificent show.

Skating is usually a sport of individuals, at most two individuals working as a couple. With the Kiss ‘n Cry, glittery costumes and makeup, the stuffed toys fans throw on the ice, it can also appear a little flaky.

Yet skaters are as tough as any athlete, and as capable of selflessness. Now, it’s just easier to recognize.

From their disparate little towns and with their different stories and challenges, these seven became a gold medal team.

Radford’s journey from Balmertown — a dot of about 1,000 people on the map of northwestern Ontario and a huge drive from Thunder Bay in one direction and Winnipeg in another — is not a bad metaphor.

He stayed there until he was 13, whereupon he moved, for his skating, to Kenora, which blew him away with its wondrous size and bright lights.

“I was like, ‘There’s so many more people,’ ” he said. The next year, he was off to Winnipeg. “I remember looking out the window at the skyscrapers there,” he said. Now, when he goes back, he recognizes how small the Manitoba capital really is. Then it was onto Montreal, and the year after that, Toronto.

Now he’s 33, he’s seen the world, he’s engaged (to a man, Spanish skater Luis Fenero, he adores), and he knows what counts, what “transcends” he said, are the strong relationships.

“Who gets to go to the Olympics and stand on an Olympic podium with this group of people? It’s like one in a billion odds. I think we really appreciate one another. … There’s just such a lot of love, between all of us.”