Canadian ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir have arrived in Pyeongchang for their third and final Winter Olympics more prepared than ever, having fine-tuned their programs after a stinging loss to arguably their biggest rivals.
The 2010 Olympic champions were defeated by France’s Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron at the Grand Prix Final last December, finishing 2.3 points behind them to take silver.
The uncharacteristic loss propelled Virtue and Moir, who will be Canada’s flag bearers at the Olympic opening ceremony on Friday, into introspection. The three-time world champions carefully assessed their programs to see what had gone wrong and what could be improved.
“We came home and threw a lot at our coaches of things that we wanted to change and they answered the call,” Moir, 30, told reporters after practicing at the Gangneung Ice Arena on Wednesday.
Virtue and Moir
“We came up with great solutions to fix probably both programs and pretty drastically before nationals, and then a couple little tweaks here before the Olympics.”
Virtue, 28, said they were now focused on ways to improve their transitions to make their short and free dance seem more fluid and seamless.
The focus, she said, had shifted from trying to rack up points to eliminating any possible deductions.
