A 1-2 punch for Canadian ice-dance gurus
PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA— Along the boards, Marie-France Dubreuil shimmies to the left, slide-strides to the right, weaving around television cameras, thrusts her shoulders up, semaphores palms down.
In days of yore, her movements would have been for the judges. Now she shadow ice-dances. Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon, twice world silver medallists — contending for Olympic gold in Turin when she slipped his grasp and went flying out of a lift, tearing her knee ligaments — are the husband-wife coaching team whose wards finished 1-2 on the podium Tuesday: Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir with gold, Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France with silver.
Had Americans Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue not stumbled in the free skate, it would have been a1-2-3 sweep for the revered ice dance geniuses from Montreal.
Five-time Canadian champions, they’ve taken their immense store of wisdom and creativity, investing it in their elite disciples.
“Absolutely not,” declared Moir when asked on Tuesday if gold in Pyeongchang would have been attainable without Dubreuil and Lauzon. “That’s the story today. These are two athletes that have their own Olympic experience, 2002 and 2006, that didn’t go their way. They’ve been rocks for us.”
Virtue and Moir moved to Montreal two years ago, after announcing themselves all-in again for another spin at the Olympics, specifically to train under Dubreuil and Lauzon.
“The first meeting we had with Patrice and Marie-France, we threw everything at these guys,” Moir recalls.
“We had baggage. You (Tessa) were in shape, I was out of shape. I had old, mental things I had to work through and they just handled it so classy.
“We couldn’t have done any of this without them. We wouldn’t have made it out of the very first summer. We were working with professionals we were lucky enough to say, they’ll change the rest of our lives. What we take from this experience, more so, the fact that hopefully they’ve given us the tools to succeed in life.”
Dubreuil and Lauzon weren’t having any of that talk, content to bask in the Olympic glory of the skaters they brought to Pyeongchang. “The competition is about them,” said Dubreuil, “it’s not about us.
“Close to perfection for both teams. Of course, we knew one would win, one would be second. We hoped Madison and Zach could have stayed third but . . . It was a real roller-coaster of emotion today. But when we look at how both teams performed and how they trained, how they handle nerves and expectations, we’re super-proud of them.”
Neither would be drawn into the short-program scoring controversy that had engulfed the two teams, with the French scored suspiciously high on Monday, despite mistakes. As former competitors in this notoriously scoring-shenanigans discipline, they had to live and die mark manipulation by judges.
“The mistakes were very small,” said Lauzon, of the French short program performance.
They won’t reveal their emotional hand, claiming to favour neither team above the other. The French, after all, they tutored to a pair of world titles. Virtue and Moir secured their third last year under their guidance. Wouldn’t have made any difference, for them, had the results been reversed.
“Same thing,” said Dubreuil. “These kids, we train them five hours a day and we see them grow We know what their goals are and we just support that. So, in whatever order is the same to us.”
Yet there was a difference between the teams because the French will doubtless return in four years while the Canadians will not.
“We’ve really tried not to go there with them,” explained Dubreuil, of the swan-song emotional dimension for Virtue and Moir.
Still. “It’s a good way to end a good, long career.’’
And they’re special, these Canadians.
“I think they were born under good stars, because they found each other at a young age,” said Dubreuil. “It’s a partnership that kept growing. Twenty years of skating together, eyes closed they know what the other one is doing.”
Lauzon: “They’re once in a generation talent.”
Closing the books on that generation now, however, with the expected retirement of Virtue and Moir, as well as the No. 2 Canadian team of Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje, who finished seventh, just ahead of Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier.
“I think a whole generation of skaters will be influenced by them and be inspired by them,” assured Dubreuil of the Virtue/Moir legacy. “We’re really grateful we had that journey with them.”