Virtue & Moir dance to gold for fifth Olympic medal
Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir will end their careers as the most decorated figure skaters in Olympic history after winning ice dance gold in PyeongChang.
The Canadians scored 122.40 in their free dance for an overall total of 206.07 points to edge out their French rivals and training mates Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron for the top step of the podium.
Virtue and Moir are now the first figure skaters in history to own five Olympic medals. They add to the Olympic ice dance title they won at Vancouver 2010, the two silver medals they captured in the ice dance and team events at Sochi 2014, and the team event gold they won last week in PyeongChang.
With the gold medal, they join a trio of legendary figure skaters who also won three in their careers: Swede Gillis Grafstrom, who three straight men’s singles titles from 1920 to 1928; Norwegian Sonja Henie, who won the women’s singles event from 1928 to 1936; and Irina Rodnina, who captured pairs titles in 1972, 1976 and 1980 for the Soviet Union with two different partners.
Virtue and Moir had held a 1.74 point lead after the short dance thanks to a world record performance. And they needed that lead to claim the gold medal.
RELATED: Virtue & Moir lead with world record short dance
Of the top three couples after the short dance, it was Papadakis and Cizeron who took to the ice first for their free dance, performing a lyrical program to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. They broke their own world record in the free dance with 123.35 points for an overall record score of 205.28.
In stark contrast, Virtue and Moir went for drama, portraying the story of Christian and Satine from the movie Moulin Rouge, through the modern Tango de Roxanne and Come What May. Like the French, they achieved level four on all of their technical elements. But Papadakis and Cizeron ever so slightly outscored them on grades of execution as well as program components to win the free dance.
In addition to their five Olympic medals, the illustrious career of Virtue and Moir includes three world titles and eight national titles.
More to come.
