Steamy program could melt ice
Sellout crowd gets an eyeful from Virtue and Moir
LONDON, Ont. — It wasn’t quite sex on skates, but suffice to say Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir showed a steamier side of themselves this season in the free dance they took into Saturday’s ice dancing finale at the world figure skating championships.
The 2010 Olympic champions’ performance to a suite from the opera Carmen was racy, fast, powerful and — to the naked eye — hard to fault.
And yet, it wasn’t good enough to keep from losing yet more ground to their Detroit training partners and, for all intents and purposes, their only rivals, Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White.
In what looked like a cointoss between two wonderful programs, Davis and White, skating to music from Notre Dame de Paris, built on the all but insurmountable lead they had taken in Thursday’s short dance by winning the free skate, 112.44 to the Canadians’ 111.17, and claiming their second world title by a resounding 4.52- point margin, right in Virtue and Moir’s backyard.
The sellout crowd at Budweiser Gardens may have been disappointed in the result but they got an eyeful from the gold and silver medallists.
Russia’s Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev finished a distant third, while Canada’s No. 2 team, Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje, pulled themselves up from sixth to fifth in an amazing show of grit and stamina, considering she broke her fibula in December.
“Gotta be honest with you, that’s one of the highlights of our career,” said Moir. “Not very often you see an arena packed to the brim — we’re not skaters from the ’ 90s. So how special was it for us to go out there tonight, hear the audience really focus on our program, deliver, and have a great skate?”
Only the colour of the medal was lacking.
“We’d be lying if we said we came here to get silver,” said Virtue, “but we didn’t make it easy on ourselves after the short program, we were in a bit of a hole, but we came out here and battled.”
For White and Davis, who also won in 2011 but finished second to the Canadians in 2010 and ’ 12, and at the Vancouver Olympics, it almost felt like home ice. They were warmly greeted and lavishly cheered by the crowd, just a two- hour drive away from their practice rink.
“It’s not like a basketball game or a football game, where you’ve got the crowd actively working against you,” the 25- year- old White said. “We certainly felt they were on our side, and we just wanted to put out a great program for ourselves.
“Obviously, the first time we won worlds being the first- ever American world championship, that has a bit of a special place, but I think our growth this season and how far we’ve come to win this gold medal makes this really special.”
Moir had been snappish after the short program, when his comments about being happy with their skate, despite the marks, was taken as a criticism of the judges — or of Davis and White. But he promised a memorable performance Saturday, and he and Virtue delivered one. Still, the Americans have taken over the momentum, heading into the Olympic year.
“Well, we’ve got a year to figure that out,” Moir said. “But I mean, Charlie and Meryl are great skaters, we take our hats off to them. I know I got a little fired up at the media ( Thursday), but in no way was that to discredit them. We know they’re strong and they have their attributes that are amazing, and we’re both pushing the sport.
“We’ll see what we come up with for next season, but we’re not going to go back into the classic Virtue- Moir everybody wants, either, because we’re older and more mature.”
Marina Zueva, who coaches both teams, said she couldn’t feel bad for the Canadians.
“I’m always happy for both teams. They are unbelievable skaters, unbelievable people. No matter what they do, they put all their soul, all their energy into this sport,” she said. “OK, second place, but does it matter, when some people are crying, everyone is involved emotionally in the creativity of what they do? How can I be sad?”