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Adrian Wyld / THE CANADIAN PRESS
Canadian ice dance partners Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir are seen following a news conference at the Sochi Winter Olympics on Feb. 6, 2014 in Sochi, Russia.
SOCHI, RUSSIA—Being Canadian means always saying you’re sorry.
That’s the joke, isn’t it? Bump into a Canadian and we’re the ones who apologize. Endlessly, chronically and identifiably nice.
Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir are certainly just about the nicest young Canadians you’d ever meet. But they will not apologize for wanting to win gold, expecting to win gold and believing themselves deserving to win gold.
Which of course, in the case of this ice dance team, would be repeat gold, four years after their sublime triumph in Vancouver.
“We’re so cultivated that way, as Canadians growing up, to embrace that modesty,” Virtue was saying to reporters Thursday morning, spinning off the Own The Podium audacity that was so rewarding for national team athletes four years ago — 14 gold, the most of any country — and again in London 2012.
“We do want to skate our personal best and this is for us anyway an opportunity to have a moment that is more meaningful than a gold medal. Yet we’re such fierce competitors that of course we want to win, and that’s what we think we’re ready to do.’’
The beauty pauses for a moment, considering the words that will follow, words that can’t be taken back, not with this audience.
“Taking the leap of actually saying it in front of media — that our goal is to win — is a big step. But it’s not something that we’ve shied away from, especially in the last few years.”
No, they’ve never made any bones about it. That’s part of the recent Canadian transformation too, where it’s no longer just good enough to be here — the attitude that resulted in no gold medals for the host nation in Montreal in 1976 and Calgary in 1988.
“As a country we’ve embraced that approach, coming right out and declaring our goals,” Virtue continues. “As athletes, we have to believe that we’re going to win. Part of saying that is holding yourself accountable. If you say it out loud, you have to back it up. But there’s a fear that you can sound arrogant and as proud Canadians, that’s the last thing we’d want to be.”
This is doubtless the last (and second) Olympics for Canada’s beloved dance team, now viewed as seniors on the figure skating circuit though scarcely in their mid-20s. Defending Olympic champions, reigning world champions — alternating that title with American rivals and training partners in Michigan, Meryl Davis and Charlie White — Virtue and Moir are attending their second and doubtlessly last Winter Games, captains of the 17-member Canadian figure skating contingent in Sochi.
They have the knack of wearing confidence and unobtrusiveness simultaneously, precisely because it’s not in the Canadian nature to boast like a swaggering American, or complain when the marks don’t always match the performance — as, indeed, the scores for Virtue and Moir have been just a tad off the expected in the past two Grand Prix championships, both staked by Davis and White.
“People can be a little bit catty,” says Moir, of the backlash against overt self-assurance publicly expressed. “It’s a delicate balance. For me, it’s about being true to myself and being true to our goals and not being afraid to declare what you want. We said it before 2010 and people gasped, they weren’t expecting it. Now I think the culture has changed a little bit.”
These Games, the duo well-understands, will be an entirely different experience from their in-awe debut four years ago. As they, too, are significantly different people, if deeply more understanding of each other.
“We’ve learned a lot more about each other in the last four years than we did the first 13,” reveals Moir of their long-time partnership, believed to be platonic — they’ve always said so — but also rather unfathomable to outsiders looking in. The two have such obvious emotional synchronicity, seem — let’s borrow the phrase – to complete each other.
They joke about doing ballroom dancing together in their golden years and babysitting each other’s children some day.
Their long journey is depicted, they say, in their free skate program.
“It tells about a young boy and a young girl working together and going through all of these different ups and downs,” says Moir, on their implied (if not absolutely stated) Olympic swan-song. “It’s an interesting partnership that we have, friendship, whatever you want to call it. We don’t even know what to call it. But we know that it’s special and we’re celebrating that.”
Moir adds: “We have the biggest title in the sport and we wanted to make sure that we pushed ourselves and experimented with the sport and I think we’ve done that. Now we’re here for another Games but also it’s about having our moment on the ice.”
There is ferocity to win and poignancy about what is passing, slipping away, this intense connection they’ve shared since childhood. Moir admits he’s felt verklempt throughout this past year; was most close-to-the-surface teary at Skate Canada, knowing it was likely their last, already “letting the romance” of the final season seize his heart. Coach Marina Zoueva told him to snap out of it.
“It adds more meaning, I suppose,” Virtue acknowledges of their last hurrah. “But at this point, it’s hard to think beyond Feb. 17,” which is when the ice dance competition winds up. “As athletes we’re so narrow-focused and zoned in on what we have to do, the job at hand.”
Because of the newly added team figure skating event, that job is at hand quickly. The ice dance component of the team competition is Saturday-Sunday. Though not announced, it’s quite likely Virtue and Moir will perform in both the short and free — unlike Patrick Chan, who will only skate the short program Thursday night before giving way to teammate Kevin Reynolds in the long.
“We’ve made it clear that we do want to skate both,” says Moir.
Four judged ice dances in a fortnight — nothing to it, they claim.
Virtue: “What we do in practice is about 100 times tougher that what we’re facing here in the next couple of weeks.”
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