On the heels of capturing Canada's first Olympic ice dance title, Virtue and Moir capped a magical season by claiming their first world figure skating victory Friday.
The rock-solid Canadians, who hadn't lost all season, laid down yet another elegant free dance to Gustav Mahler's "Symphony No. 5," scoring 110.03 for their enchanting performance at the Palavela arena. That gave them 224.43 points overall to finish ahead of Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White for the gold medal.
"It's really nice, there's such a sense of relief and now we can really breathe a little bit," Virtue said. "Coming out of Vancouver I'm sure like a lot of the other teams there's such a letdown and everyone is exhausted and it's hard to keep the energy up. We're really pleased with our skates, I don't think we could have done much better this week.
"It's a nice way to end the season with another win for us."
Nice enough that Moir hinted the two would return to the ice next season after murmurs the worlds might have been their skating swan song.
"We haven't really talked and our theory is we can't really make a decision until we've kind of had some time off and get our thoughts adjusted," Moir said. "But especially after you have a skate like that, it felt really good tonight, it was a lot of fun to skate it.
"It feels like I want to skate another year for sure, but it's so easy to say that after a skate like that."
Davis and White, good friends and training partners of Virtue and Moir, were second with 223.03 points. Italians Federica Faiella and Massimo Scali won bronze with 197.85.
Vanessa Crone of Aurora, Ont., and Paul Poirier of Unionville, Ont., finished a surprising seventh with 180.03 points in just their second world championship appearance.
The gold was the second medal for Canada at the world championships ? Toronto's Patrick Chan won silver in the men's singles Thursday ? and the first world title for a Canadian dance team since Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz won in 2003.
Moir said their shiny new title as Olympic champions came with some added expectations and Moir had been battling nerves all week.
"That was definitely something that I was learning how to deal with this week, was the expectation now that we were the Olympic champion," Moir said. "This was also the title we really wanted and would cap off our perfect year, our fairytale ending to our year. It was nice to really get that.
"But at the same time it is just about the skating, we were very proud of how we skated today and we felt so lucky again to have the opportunity to do that program and we're going to do it all tour for sure, we love that."
Virtue, from London, Ont., and Moir, from Ilderton, Ont., who held a narrow lead over Davis and White heading into Friday, actually finished second to the Olympic silver medallists in the free dance after Moir bobbled on a "twizzle" ? side-by-side moving spins. The two were also docked a mark for holding their trademark "Goose" lift too long.
"Of course, we're competitors, we've got to find out what that deduction was about, and it's kind of alarming and it kind of makes you a little bit upset and mad," Moir said. "But we know it's always going to be a tight race with Charlie and Meryl, they're great skaters and we see them every day."
Their breathtaking "Goose" lift ? so named after an American suggested they call it the Eagle ? has Virtue balance on one knee on Moir's crouching back, her arms outstretched, before spilling into his arms, and its image was splashed across countless newspapers when they performed it in Vancouver.
Despite the two mishaps, their romantic skate ? she dressed in a filmy white gown, her hair pulled back tightly in a chignon at her neck, and he in an understated white shirt and black trousers ? was enough to hold onto gold, giving them the one medal that had been missing from their extensive collection. The two won silver at the 2008 world championships and bronze last year in Los Angeles.
Continued...