THE CANADIAN PRESS
LOS ANGELES — They’d rather be first than third, but just 12 weeks after Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir stepped back onto the ice together the Canadian ice dancing duo have set themselves up to capture a medal at the world figure skating championships.
Virtue, from London, Ont., and Moir, from Ilderton, Ont., opened the world championships Tuesday with a third-place finish in the compulsory dance, scoring 39.37 points for their performance of the Paso Doble at the Staples Center.
"We really try not to worry about (the placing), we just think about every skate and really try to do the program justice and try to skate it as best we can," Moir said. "But when we’re here to win, it’s definitely not great to see we’re not after the first segment. We’ll be looking to improve on that."
Jessica Dube and Bryce Davison, Canada’s defending world bronze medallists in pairs, find themselves with considerable ground to make up after finishing seventh in the short program Tuesday evening. Teammates Meagan Duhamel and Craig Buntin were eighth.
Virtue and Moir, who were late to start the season after Virtue had surgery on both her shins, had hoped for higher, but they remain within striking distance of leaders Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin of Russia with both the original dance and free dance still to go.
The Russians, who skipped last year’s world championships after Shabalin underwent knee surgery, scored 40.77 to take the lead Tuesday, while Kingston, Ont.-born Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto of the U.S. sit second with 39.65. Vanessa Crone of Aurora, Ont., and Paul Poirier of Unionville, Ont., were 10th with 33.33.
"That 39 score is a big score when (Virtue and Moir) have only done two events other than this and haven’t done a lot of compulsories," said Mike Slipchuk, Skate Canada’s high performance director. "It’s a big step forward and big way to start the week.
"A point is nothing to make up anymore."
The two would rather not have any difference to make up, but Moir said it’s certainly doable.
"There’s a gap there, and we’ll be looking to close that gap," Moir said. "It’s not out of reach, that’s for sure, but it’s not the right approach to go out there and think about beating everybody by a point and a half, we’re going to go out there and do what we do and hopefully that will take care of itself."
"Being perfectionists, we want to be the best in every segment, so we’ll allow ourselves a few moments to sort of relish in it, and then move on, and focus on (original dance) and free dance," Virtue said. "That’s all we can do."
Virtue, 19, underwent surgery Oct. 6 to alleviate pain in her shins caused by compartment syndrome. While she did rehab at home in London, the 21-year-old Moir continued to skate at their training base in Canton, Mich., using sandbags and hockey sticks as makeshift skating partners. The reigning world silver medallists skipped the Grand Prix circuit, finally making their season debut at the Canadian championships in January, which they won. They were second at the ISU Four Continents last month in Vancouver.
The two insist they’ve finally shaken off any lingering rust.
"I think that’s gone, I think that’s in the rear-view mirror, I think at nationals you might have been able to see that and at Four Continents a little bit, but I think here we’re a lot better trained and really excited to compete," Moir said.
The Canadians said they made no discernable errors in the compulsory dance, which is a set dance that all the skaters do that measures the basics such as skating skills, style and unison. The difference between first and third was negligible, said Slipchuk.
"You put yourself in the game in the compulsories and then your strengths can come forward after that," he said.
The original dance is Thursday, followed by the free dance on Friday.
Dube, from Drummondville, Que., and Davison, from Cambridge, Ont., scored 61.80, skating to an orchestral rendition of Coldplay’s "Fix You." But Dube stumbled on her landing of their opening triple Salchows, a costly error that put the Canadian champions behind from the start.
"I’m a little bit disappointed about that," Dube said of her error. "Of course we would have liked to have done a clean program, we’ll just have to focus more for (Wednesday)."
"It wasn’t by any means perfect," Davison added. "There are still a lot of positive things about our skate, very nice throws, side-by-side spins were good . . . just a couple of small errors. Now it’s time to learn from this one and go on to the next. We’re looking forward to coming back from this one. It won’t be the first time we’ve done a mediocre short and come out and done a really good long."
Duhamel and Buntin, skating to "Four Lamentations," scored 61.28 in one of their strongest skates since they became a team less than two seasons ago.
"We’re not such a new team anymore and we’re really starting to feel very confident," Buntin said.
Mylene Brodeur of Stanbridge Station, Que., and John Mattatall of Wallace, N.S., were 11th.
Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy of Germany, dressed in flashy neon outfits — she in pink and he in purple — earned a standing ovation to their performance to the soundtrack of "Lost in Space," and first-place marks in the pairs of 72.30 heading into Wednesday’s free skate. Russians Yuko Kavaguti and Alexander Smirnov are second with 68.94, while Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao of China are third with 67.42.
The ice dancing field, meanwhile, is wide open this year with the recent withdrawal of reigning world champions Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder of France. Delobel injured her shoulder in December at the Grand Prix Final.
This year’s event determines how many entries a country will have at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Any combination of placings that equals 13 — for example if a country has a gold medal and a 12th-place finish — it will earn a full three spots in Vancouver.
Crone, 18, and Poirier, 17, who are making their first world championship appearance after making the leap from the junior ranks, said they would like to help make that happen, but it’s not their priority.
"It’s definitely a possibility, we’ve kind of put it on the back-burner though, the main thing is to skate to the best of our abilities, the marks and the placements are the secondary things," Poirier said. "We have no expectations being our first worlds."
If Canada earns three spots in all four figure skating disciplines for the 2010 Games, it would be the first time in the team’s history.
Led by Jeffrey Buttle’s gold medal in the men’s singles, the Canadian team captured three medals at last year’s world championships.