GANGNEUNG, South Korea — “Don’t let me down.”
OK, it was a joke, but that’s what Scott Moir says he usually tells Tessa Virtue, his ice dancing partner of more than two decades, before they take the ice for a big skate.
And the duo that captured Canada’s attention in Vancouver eight years ago when they won Olympic gold, and again four years later when they took silver, and again on Friday when they led all of Team Canada into the Olympic stadium to officially open these Games, had one of their final big skates ever on Sunday in South Korea.
Virtue and Moir are off to a good start here, at their third and final Games—and so too is the Canadian figure skating team. The London, Ont.-born duo further separated Canada from the rest of the field in the team event, handily winning the short ice dance program with a synched up performance (featuring twizzles) to the Rolling Stones’ Sympathy for the Devil, dressed in black and shimmery gold costumes.
After another first-place finish from two-time world champions Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford in the pairs, and a third-place finish from world silver medallist Kaetlyn Osmond in the women’s singles, Canada is in the gold medal position heading into Day 3’s final three skates, and six points ahead of the Olympic Athletes from Russia. (The competition begins at 8 p.m. ET on Sunday.)
In their debut skate here, Virtue and Moir scored 80.41, short of their season-best of 82.68. When the result flashed on the screen, Moir—who’ll be the first to admit his facial expressions aren’t exactly tough to read—looked a little disappointed. The panel is judging tougher than usual, so far.
“I think any reaction to scores this early in the competition is just us being perfectionists and wanting to figure out how we maximize points,” Virtue says. “We still have a big job to do [on Sunday in the long program] and then again next week, so we’re trying not to get too ahead of ourselves, but we’re really pleased with that performance.”
Four years ago, Canada won silver in the team event. Moir said they weren’t all on the same page, some skaters treating it like “a dress rehearsal” and others going for gold. Here in South Korea, the Canadian team is synched up. Says Moir: “The goal is clearly to win.”
It sure would be extra nice for Patrick Chan, one of the most accomplished figure skaters in history, the three-time world champion who is missing only Olympic gold from his extensive hardware collection, after winning silver in Sochi. In his short program in this team event, Chan fell twice, but still managed to finish third overall. He’ll skate his long program in Monday’s finale. “In a big way,” Moir says, “we wanna do this for Chiddy.” (That’s Chan’s nickname.)
“I think that’s what makes it so special,” Moir adds. “I mean, Patrick Chan, you could make the argument he’s the best skater that ever was … He was disappointed in his skate yesterday. We were actually quite proud. We loved the way he battled to the end. I know that’s not a Patrick Chan skate, but what I did see was him battle and it was a veteran move. It got us in the position that we needed to be in.”
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If you want to get an idea of how badly this Canadian team wants this win and how unified they are, just check out their kiss and cry area. You’ll find Moir in there cheering his teammates on nearly all the time. Every move seems to earn a standing ovation.
Duhamel says she has to remind herself to block the team out when she’s skating past their little purple booth here, that when she was visualizing her short program the other day, “I could imagine Scott like, ‘Aaaah!’ and going crazy like he does and I was like, ‘Oh my god I have to ignore him. I have to focus.’”
Of course, she adds, “We’ll be there screaming for him as well.”
While Duhamel and Radford block out the team, Chan made a little eye contact during his short program, which took Virtue and Moir by surprise. “We were like, ‘Oh my gosh!’” Moir says.
“’Sorry to bother you!’” Virtue adds, laughing.
It’s tougher on the nerves to watch teammates compete than it is to compete yourself, too. Radford was in his room watching Chan skate—he and Duhamel skated later that same day, so they were preparing—and he texted her: “I’m really nervous.”
“I told him to emotionally detach!” Duhamel says, grinning.
“Yeah,” Radford adds. “She was like, ‘We can’t be emotionally involved right now. We have our own job to do.’ But, I mean, we’re a very strongly connected team.”
Radford even lived with Moir for a summer, back when Moir was 10.
“He was like the annoying little brother,” Radford says.
Of all the teams here, Duhamel believes Canada’s is the most unified, in part because many of them have grown up together, in part because she and Radford and Chan and Moir and Virtue will also be retiring together, after this competition. “I don’t think a lot of the other countries have that unity, and I think that’s going to be Canada’s strength,” Duhamel says.
After their free program on Sunday, Radford put his hands over his heart and then threw his arms out towards the rest of the Canadian team.
“We’ve all known each other for so long that it’s just this incredible story that we’ve all been through and it’s sort of coming to its conclusion,” he says. “We want to make it the best possible.”
With just three skates to go, if this team can stay on top, it’ll be Canada’s first figure skating Olympic gold since Virtue and Moir made their debuts on this stage, eight years ago.
And, as Moir rightly points out, “We are really sitting pretty.”
