Duo built for it
Moir, Virtue come through on Day 2
Scott Moir was built for this event. He’s a team guy.
You won’t find a noisier, more boisterous Canadian on the 17-member figure skating squad at these Olympics.
He’s the one in that extended kiss and cry area with arms raised, mouth open, pride splattered all over his mug. Yeah, he’s the guy that pairs skaters Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford told one another to ignore during their short program on Friday, because they needed to focus, and they knew he was going to be loud and proud.
That Moir and dance partner Tessa Virtue were able to do their part on Sunday and extend Canada’s lead atop the team event standings was apropos, and an honour. He really wants this team to succeed and he’s prepared to do his part.
“You just don’t get too many shots at an Olympic medal, let alone an Olympic gold medal,” he said. “And I think Canada has a great chance. I think we’re a great skating country. The choreographers, the coaches, the skaters that have come from our country are second to none. I think it’s very important for us to win this event.”
They didn’t win in Sochi, they finished second to Russia. And he thinks the 10 team members who were there and are back here have hit upon why that happened.
“We’ve talked a little about how we weren’t really thrilled actually with our approach in Sochi. Some team members thought it was a dress rehearsal, others were trying to kind of go after it and win that gold medal.
“We had our signals crossed and it didn’t work out for us. So this time the goal is clearly to win. Our goal is to have our best skates and we think that will get us where we need to be.
“To experience that as a team and have all that emotion could be something really special.”
They topped the dance short program to earn 10 placement points on
Sunday, giving Canada 27 points with only the women’s short program to come before the field is cut to five teams from 10.
The USA was ranked second with 23, the Olympic Athletes from Russia third with 21.
Sure, Virtue and Moir clearly weren’t thrilled with the score of 80.51, which wasn’t what they wanted or expected given the clean quality of the program, but scores across the competition were lower than earlier in the season.
“I think it does say that it’s a tough panel,” said Moir.
“I mean, we thought that was an improved skate from what we’d done, especially internationally in the fall. But that’s a good sign. This is the Olympic Games. You’re looking for the harshest panel especially when you’re going to have the best field that we’ve had in four years. We have no reason to think the judging isn’t fair. It has been for a long time in our sport.”
They are always in search of more, of perfection actually. But it is somewhat easier to wrap their heads around the marks because they are out front.
“Any reaction to scores this early in the competition is just us being perfectionists and wanting to figure out how we maximize points and evaluating the performance,” said Virtue.
“We’re really pleased with that performance.
“It’s tough sort of starting out the Olympic Games.
The first skate out there the tendency is to try too hard or maybe strangle the program a little bit. Our goal was to really trust our training and let that shine through and show some freedom and some command in each of the movements.”
The five countries who advance will send pairs onto the ice to kick off the long programs later this afternoon. The rest of the competition goes Monday.