Tessa Virtue couldn’t find one adjective to describe her and ice dancing partner Scott Moir’s return to competition after two years away from the sport.
So she used four instead. “It’s inspiring, it’s challenging, it’s terrifying, it’s thrilling, I mean, we’ve really run the gamut of emotions throughout this comeback process,” Virtue said Wednesday at the Skate Canada high-performance camp at Hershey Centre.
“We’re impressed with the state of the skating world. We had the opportunity to step back and get some distance and a different perspective on it. Sitting in the stands for some practices, watching things unfold from home was very different. But I think we have a different appreciation of the sport and a different idea of where we want to take our own skating.”
Virtue and Moir, both from the London, Ont., area, became national names after winning gold at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010. They followed that up with a silver in Sochi four years later before deciding to take a break from the ice.
The two announced their return earlier this year but started amping up their fitness levels for competition last fall.
“We tried our best, but to be honest it was difficult. Two years off is a long time,” the 28-year-old Moir said. “We tried to come back as early as possible but there were still a couple things, the body doesn’t work quite the same as it did at 24 and 20.
“I felt this year it was a bit of a struggle but now seeing the light and trusting in the training, trusting all that experience has brought us around to competition shape. It’s exciting. I’m getting a couple years back on my life here.”
Virtue and Moir have moved their training base to Montreal to work with Canadian ice dancing coaches Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon. Training alongside them is the dynamic young French pair Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron.
Virtue described the talent of Papadakis and Cizeron, both 21, as “absolutely phenomenal.” Moir echoed that praise.
“They’re pushing the sport,” he said. “We really pride ourselves on trying to do things different but they are taking the sport to a new level and I think it’s going to be a challenge for us to even compete against them in the next couple of years.”
The veteran ice dancers, who also won gold at the 2010 and 2012 world championships, admitted they have much to learn from the new crop of young stars, including Canada’s Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje.
Virtue said that challenge has been a driving force in their comeback. For Moir, it’s been about competition.
“We’re competitors, we’re looking to win. That’s never changed for 10 years and I don’t think it ever will,” Moir said. “But our perspective really has changed. Not that we don’t want to win, we’re coming in here wanting to win a gold medal for Canada, but I don’t think we judge ourselves solely on that result anymore.
“This part of our journey is going to be [about] whether we can improve our skating to the level we want it to be and we’ll know. We always say we know before the judges’ marks come up and that’s going to be more important this time around.”
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