Not a fairy tale but a happy ending
Divine Virtue and Moir recapture ice-dance title despite wobbles in long program,
With a tacit wink and a nudge, Tessa Virtue purred teasingly to a group of reporters: “It seems like we fooled you guys, didn’t we?’’
Actually, no. Just the judges, maybe, and they’re the only ones who count.
Virtue and Scott Moir, the divine ice dancing couple from London, Ont., retrieved their world title here Thursday night, the championship gold lost a year ago to ultra-friendly American rivals and training mates.
But even up on press row, it had been evident the Canadian duo was a stroke short and a few stumbles off of perfection, not quite the fluidly sublime Fred & Audrey of Funny Face. And perfection, however unfairly, had been anticipated from a team with, finally, a full, uninterrupted, season regimen of training.
They adore their effervescent program, the ’50s Hollywood musical starring Astaire and Hepburn originally suggested by Virtue.
The audience here, however, was palpably less captivated, even disengaged.
It is unusual for Virtue and Moir to finish a performance and not be rewarded with a standing ovation.
In the kiss ’n’ cry area, as they awaited their marks, there was some palpable anxiety, at least on Virtue’s not-so-funny face. She leaned into Moir, questioningly, and he urged her to calm down.
“I tried to enjoy the moment,’’ said Virtue. “But part of me was a little disappointed, which is silly.’’
Not silly at all. Nobody knows better than these two when the splendiferous hasn’t been entirely achieved on the ice.
“There are some programs where, before you know it, you’re at the end and everything is just happening so effortlessly,’’ said Virtue. “This wasn’t one of those. I had a few little bobbles here and there. I’m not sure if people noticed them or not. It was kind of periodic. But the good thing was getting back together and finding that unison again, getting back into the moment of the program.’’
So, it was relief rather than pure satisfaction when their marks registered, on the board and in their minds. A free dance score of 110.34 put the last couple to skate in the competition comfortably beyond Meryl Davis and Charlie White, with a combined tally, short and long, of 182.65.
The Americans, with a crowdpleasing execution of their classy Strauss routine, came in at 107.64 and 178.62 overall. France’s Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat also lifted the home crowd out of their seats with their amusing interpretation of The Mummy and the Pharaoh, taking bronze, their first world medal.
Just behind them, barely out of podium territory, were Canada’s charging-hard Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje, with a downright erotic routine skated to a French ballad, “Je Suis Malade.’’ A third Canadian couple, rookies Kharis Ralph and Asher Hill, were 14th.
“We definitely had to fight a little bit more for the program than maybe a fairytale performance would have been,’’ conceded Moir. “That’s why you train. We really appreciate having the training under our belts to be able to perform like that even when it isn’t a perfect skate.
“I guess Tessa’s convinced me because she’s a perfectionist but I thought it was pretty good.’’
There was puzzlement, though, and considerable comment from knowledgeable observers over how the Canadians could have scored three-plus points better than the Americans, who were gracious yet befuddled. “We don’t know where the discrepancy was in the judges’ eyes,’’ said White.
Any bitterness was kept well hidden. “They’re not the ones that gave us the score,’’ shrugged Davis of the team with whom they share coaches and a training base in Michigan. Added White: “It’s a little bit harder to take when you don’t know why.’’
Their performance, with its blinding speed and incomparably outstanding twizzles, nevertheless earned fewer technical points, despite dazzling spectators.
“We see them train every day and we know that they’re going to bring the house down,’’ said Virtue.
Both Virtue and Moir had a couple of slight missteps. “It just didn’t come as naturally as it has in the past or as easy as it has felt in training at home,’’ said Virtue, acknowledging the routine hadn’t unfolded as visualized. “But maybe those were just little bobbles that I felt or that we just felt between us.’’
It was the intense training over the past season — their first since 2008 in which Virtue hasn’t been hobbled by pain from over-exertion of the calf muscles, a condition that has twice required surgery — which rescued the couple from what could have been a dramatically different result. They weren’t thrown off-stride by the small mistakes and quickly regained unison, though at one juncture Moir did try to disguise a flub as intended choreography. “I kind of feel like my character at that point is kind of shocked and surprised. So I played off it.’’
Still, Moir admitted: “I think a younger Tessa and Scott might have melted down from something like that.
“There’s a lot of pressure for us to win because we knew we’d done the work to deserve to win. When the marks came up, I was a little bit relieved.’’
The outcome and whatever scoring controversy might be attached to it is a subject they won’t be discussing with Davis and White. That’s forbidden territory, as always.
“Never,’’ said Virtue. “We can be friends and talk about anything but skating. We just don’t go there.’’