Couples - ScottღTessa #70:"With glowing hearts," the lyrics say - that Monday night, that was something everyone could understand.

PaperGirl · 02-22-2011, 02:49 PM

Welcome to the Scott&Tessa thread!
One Year Olympic Anniversary!

PLEASE do not take ANY picture or links without permission. Thank you!

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#69

moncoeur · 02-22-2011, 03:03 PM

Thanks for this Anna!

dida82 · 02-22-2011, 03:10 PM

Thanks FTNT!!!

WriterLiz88 · 02-22-2011, 03:16 PM

Thanks Anna

Can't believe it's been a year

moncoeur · 02-22-2011, 03:30 PM

A few things to celebrate!!

Quote:

Canada’s Sweethearts: Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir
The inside story of their childhood dream come true

You’d never know it, considering the chemistry between Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir as they skated to gold this week, but a little over a year ago, Moir was training alone—using a hockey stick and a sandbag as a stand-in for his partner. Back then, Virtue could “barely walk,” says Lynn Lee, a close friend of the Moirs. Virtue, 20, and Moir, 22, missed most of the 2008-2009 season while she recuperated from surgery to both of her legs. Doctors had told them that “nobody recovers the same from this surgery,” Moir told Maclean’s. “And for the longest time before that they didn’t even know what was wrong with her.”

Yes, it’s been quite the ride for Canada’s golden duo, the youngest ice dance gold medallists in history, and the first North Americans to win the event in its 30-year Olympic history. It makes their victory, following a near-flawless skate on Monday, even more remarkable. “Last year was very tough,” says their coach and choreographer, Igor Shpilband. In October 2008, Virtue went under the knife to relieve pain in her shins, the result of chronic exertional compartment syndrome (each of her calves still bears four circular scars from the surgery). Her coaches, who held weekly conference calls with her doctor and physiotherapist, had to be careful not to push too hard.

Virtue and Moir’s return to the competitive circuit began in Vancouver, a year ago this month, at the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships at the Pacific Coliseum, the Olympic figure skating venue. As painful as that event was for Virtue—who was hustled to the medic for treatment after every skate—it was a triumph for the pair. They took silver. And in every competition since, they’ve gotten better, says Skate Canada CEO William Thompson. “I’m blown away by what they’ve done. Not only did they return; they’re stronger than ever.”
The pair started skating together 13 years ago, when Virtue was seven, and Moir, nine—a remarkable run for the sport, where partnerships are forever being made and unmade by coaches on the hunt for the perfect pairing. Moir, the son of a chemical plant employee and a figure skating coach, grew up in a house backing onto the local rink—a squat blue building on the town’s main strip—in tiny Ilderton, just north of London, Ont. Moir’s mom Alma and her twin sister Carol both skated competitively, then later coached; his older brothers Danny and Charlie also competed. “I never coached my own boys,” says Alma, chuckling. “My sister did. I coached her daughters—that was our trade-off.”
It was Carol who first thought of pairing Virtue, from nearby London, with Moir. Like Moir, Virtue was a small, graceful child, says Carol, which made her an ideal partner for her nephew, whom she calls “a bit of a ham.” Even so, for the first year, the two young athletes barely spoke. “They were just shy,” says Virtue’s dad Jim, a London lawyer (Virtue says she was hiding a bit of a crush).

On the ice, though, their talent couldn’t be contained. Carol recalls how at one of their first major competitions, in Kelowna, B.C., the two youngsters took to the ice to practice. “They were maybe 10 and 12 years old, or younger,” she says. “And when it was their turn, all the skaters and coaches sat back and just watched them.” Carol, who’d long since realized she had something special on her hands, had turned them over to Paul MacIntosh and Suzanne Killing of the Kitchener-Waterloo Skating Club. The close-knit Moirs and Virtues, who Carol says share a “big, farming family bond,” split the gruelling driving duties to Kitchener; they’d get up at 4 a.m. so the two could be on the rink by 6:30 a.m. The kids would climb into the back of the car, and fall asleep immediately, says Jim. “They had it down pat—just as we turned the last corner they’d wake up,” adds Alma. By then, they’d become best friends “without knowing it,” says Jim, and would get rattled when the other was hurt, or away.

Moir’s a natural athlete who loves to perform, says Carol. “He’s the youngest of three, so he had to work for the attention,” she adds. He was also a dynamic dancer at a young age—“rare for boys,” says MacIntosh. Virtue had grace from years of dancing (in fact, she turned down a spot with the National Ballet of Canada to focus on skating). They were the cute kids, the crowd favourites—so small that Virtue could lift Moir during performances, says Ryan Pyette, a reporter with the London Free Press who’s been covering them since they were kids. By the time they were teenagers, the pair were packing 9,000 fans into the London rink—“like Gretzky,” says Pyette.

Like young hockey stars, they left home early—at 13 and 15—moving in with billets in Kitchener. That way, they could skate from 6 to 10 a.m., and make it to school for second period. Admittedly, it was tough—both for the kids and their families. But Virtue and Moir considered it a necessary career move. Virtue even skipped Grade 8 so she could enrol at Bluevale Collegiate with Moir.
By then, they’d come to know each other with the intimacy of twins. “Their hearts beat at the same time,” says MacIntosh. “They sense each other’s every move.” On the ice, one can tell what the other is thinking with a squeeze of the hand, or the look of an eye.

Eventually, they outgrew MacIntosh—and Canada—and sought the help of Russian coaches Marina Zoueva and Igor Shpilband, world leaders in ice dance who’d put out their shingle in the Detroit suburb of Canton. “We knew they had to do something to compete internationally with the European skaters,” says Alma. “You have to play their game.” Zoueva saw they had talent but could tell that they needed help on their lifts, so she put them to work with gymnasts and acrobats from Cirque du Soleil. Next, she set to work “growing” the incredible chemistry between them. Their “soul-to-soul” skating, she says, is reminiscent of the legendary Soviet pair Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov, whom she once coached.

It was the pair’s chemistry that caught the world’s eye—“a trust, and connection that you can’t buy,” legendary ice dancer Victor Kraatz told Maclean’s. “They just connect with each other—connect with the music,” said Shpilband. “It’s magic.” Their stirring passion is in fact feigned. Believe it or not, the duo is not romantically involved (there are reports they once dated, but it threw them off their game); Moir is reportedly dating another member of the Canadian figure skating team.

They’re also famous for feeding off the crowd: “they love to perform, they love a rowdy audience,” says Alma. You could almost see them soak up the energy of the home audience in Vancouver—Scott in particular. Before taking his opening pose with Virtue, he skated round the rink alone, his arms open, his lids half-shut, seemingly absorbing the thumping energy of 11,000 fans. By then, Shpilband later told Maclean’s, he knew the gold was theirs.

He was right. The duo danced sweetly, flawlessly to Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, earning huge marks for their intricate spins and high-risk lifts—flawlessly executing their signature move, “the goose,” in which Moir crouches down while Virtue puts a skate on his thigh, balancing on one leg and extending her arms like wings before flipping onto her back to be caught by Moir and placed gently on the ice. They wanted to call it the eagle, but figured it was “too American.” It helped earn them Canada’s first figure skating gold medal of the Vancouver Games, ahead of Americans Charlie White and Meryl Davis, their best friends, with whom they share coaches and a training rink.

Back in Ilderton, the local community centre was packed with more than 300 people. Family members were out in full force: with 11 aunts and uncles in the community on Scott’s father’s side alone, “you better watch who you’re talking to in Ilderton, ’cause chances are they’re a Moir,” chuckles Jim Maguire, the manager of parks and facility services for the municipality. Watching the competition on three big-screen TVs, the crowd—most of them sporting long-sleeved red shirts emblazoned with the couple’s names—“never stopped cheering,” Maguire says. When they won the gold, everybody went wild. The Moir family took off in a parade of cars, honking their horns, and passed along streets festooned with ribbons and signs proclaiming their support for the local heroes. Carol didn’t get to bed till 5:30 a.m. “That’s the Moir family for you,” she laughs.
In Vancouver, just hours later, the duo entered Il Giardino to thunderous applause. The posh downtown restaurant was packed with their family—including nine Virtues and seven Moirs—and friends, including skaters Jeff Buttle, Jessica Dubé and Bryce Davison. They were met with champagne. A waiter broke out an operatic O Canada. “To see Scott and Tessa up there, knowing all the hard work they put into it—I was so proud,” said Charlie, Scott’s look-alike older brother, a firefighter-in-training. It was their childhood dream, Alma adds; “they’ve given up so much to get here.”

Virtue, her hair still up in a bun, was wearing black tights, flats and a red dress. Moir was in a down-filled Canada vest. Both, of course, wore their medals proudly on their chests. Moir spoke for them both, as he generally does, thanking their friends, family and coaches, before finishing up, of course, with a wink for Virtue.

Quote:

Sacrifice Pays Gold Dividends for Moirs and Virtues
Jim Virtue is trying to talk but he can't. He's just been asked what his favourite moment of the last 12 hours has been, since his daughter Tessa Virtue and her ice-dance partner, Scott Moir, won gold in a performance for the ages.

"I think ... " he begins. That's as far as he gets. His eyes well up. He puts his hand to his face. He says in a whisper, "Being here with everyone." Now his wife, Kate, sitting beside him, is also tearing up. And across the table in a waterfront restaurant in Vancouver on Tuesday, Scott's mother, Alma Moir, is wiping tears from her cheeks. The only one who isn't crying is her husband, Joe.

"For me, it was seeing them on the podium," Kate Virtue says weakly.

"They were holding hands," adds Alma.

"I loved it when they started singing O Canada," Joe pipes in. "That was just the best."

For the last half-hour, the Virtues and the Moirs - who live in London, Ont., and the nearby town of Ilderton, respectively - have been talking about sacrifice. That would be the enormous sacrifice the skaters made on the way to becoming Olympic champions, but also the sacrifices their parents and brothers and sisters made. You don't become an Olympian period without the support, commitment and love of those around you.

Scott Moir had said earlier in the day that in the moments before he and Tessa took to the ice for their gold-medal performance, he was alone with his thoughts. He said he spent a lot of that time thinking about his parents and everything they had done to get him to this point.

"Almost every family vacation we took in the last 10 years was to a figure-skating competition," he said. "I thought of my parents driving us to Waterloo at 4:30 in the morning to practise. It goes on and on."

The two families almost seemed uncomfortable talking about all that they had done in the name of their remarkable ice dancers. It wasn't about them, they insisted. What their children gave up to achieve their dreams was even greater, they wanted everyone to know. Maybe. But figure skating isn't cheap. In fact, as sports go, only horseback riding may be more expensive.

Parents of figure skaters fork out money for competitions, coaches, equipment, training, travel. Almost every time Tessa and Scott skated while growing up, a member of their families went along. So there was airfare and accommodations. They would have to pay for the accommodations of coaches, too. Tessa's costumes are $2,000 or more apiece. She goes through eight a year.Five years ago, the pair decided to switch coaches and train in Michigan. So the Virtues bought a home there and Kate moved down to watch over her then-15-year-old daughter. She had to quit her job with the Law Society of Upper Canada to do it. At that point, the Virtues' three older children were mostly grown up and off to university. Jim, a lawyer, stayed behind in London to make the money to help finance everything.

The Moirs, meantime, were forced to remortgage their home in Ilderton to help cover the bills that began piling up 13 years ago when Scott and Tessa were brought together by Scott's aunt Carol. Alma is a figure-skating instructor and Joe works for a drug company. Alma says they are an average family who make an average income. So the skating did put a tremendous strain on the family finances.

"The skating life is like a moving house," says Jim Virtue. "Except you already own a house at home. But with the moving house, you pay for all the accoutrements on top of it."

"It's never a good idea to add up the bills each year," adds Kate. "Any time Jim would ask me, I'd say, 'You don't want to know.'"
"You can easily hit six figures a year," Jim interjects.

And it will surprise exactly no one to hear they'd do it all over again, and not just because it paid off big-time, with their children now Olympic champions and likely on the road to riches. They'd do it again because they love their children.

Now, there were times along that journey when the two families would get the kids together and ask them the most important question there is: Do you still want to do this? Because it wasn't always bright lights and top finishes. There were enough falls in practice and competition to make even the most iron-willed person waver, let alone teenagers who were giving up so much.

Anyway, the answer was always yes, we love what we're doing. And that was good enough for their folks.

"I'd say the only time I really questioned it all is when Tessa got chronic exertion compression syndrome - an injury suffered through overtraining," says Kate.

The doctors told Tessa she had two choices: quit skating or endure an operation that would leave her leg permanently scarred in four places.

"She thought about it for about two seconds," Kate recalls. "And then said, 'What time can we do it?' She was 18 and a half at the time and I remember it really bothering me because she had already sacrificed so much by then.

"I said to her, 'You don't have to do this, Tessa.' And she said: 'I do if I want to get to the Olympics.'" Alma and Joe and Kate and Jim have become as close as two couples can, bonded by endless hours in cold rinks and the shared emotions that flow from having two children who compete as one. So when Jim Virtue said his favourite moment was enjoying time with Kate, Alma and Joe, and basking in the glow of their children's achievements together, it was completely understandable.

They had been through so much together. The highs and the lows - because there are always more lows than highs along the way to something as great as Olympic gold. They all still seemed to be in a bit of shock over it all.

"What are the odds of all the planets aligning at the moment they needed to peak in their sport at such a young age, in front of a Canadian crowd, at their first Olympics, and they nail it?" says Jim. "They just nail it.

"That is a dream. I have dreamed that dream and it came true."

More to come!

ann29 · 02-22-2011, 03:30 PM

Another new article with more quotes:

Injury won't keep Virtue and Moir from competing at worlds

And another Day 11 anniversary recap:

Vancouver Memories: Day 11 - Virtue and Moir shine brightly

tsforever · 02-22-2011, 03:40 PM

TFTNT Anna!

Quote:

For a title, I suggest this... (taken from Lizy's wonderful sig)..

Celebrating the one year anniversary of their win - a moment never to be forgotten.
B/c we're celebrating the one year anniversary of their win - "a moment never to be forgotten."

Aww Gladys, thanks so much for suggesting lines from my sig!

HAPPY GOOSE DAY! aka the one year anniversary of Scott and Tessa's Olympic gold medal win! I cannot believe it's been a year already

I've loved every minute of talking to you guys about these two and I hope that continues for a very long time.

I can remember watching their FD last year with my mom, we literally held our breaths for those four minutes, they were so captivating.

(and then the obsession began

) Hope there's plenty more of that to come!

Here's a little video I made celebrating the one year anniversary of their win:

Pure Perfection.

Avocagirl · 02-22-2011, 03:51 PM

Thank you, Anna ! I'm glad you kept "with glowing hearts" in the title. There's nothing more fitting for this celebration than a quote from "O Canada".

Amelia, that article/interview with the Virtues and the Moirs is one of my favourites. It's great that you posted it here !

Here's to another Olympic gold medal in Sochi ! Let's dream big, why not ?

hackysack · 02-22-2011, 03:54 PM

Yayy!! One year since Tessa and Scott caught my attention with that beautiful FD, and made me a fan of ice dance!! (NEVER would have predicted that one, hahaha.)

What a year it's been for them.

ETA: And of course, thanks for opening, Anna!!

julietta95 · 02-22-2011, 03:59 PM

Thanks so much for the new thread, Anna!

Amelia- thanks for the articles. I can't believe how long it's been... certainly doesn't feel like it.

Thief Of Love · 02-22-2011, 04:06 PM

Thanks for the new thread, Anna!

Beautiful graphic, Hacky! And I still can't believe that I've become an ice dance fan at all, let alone one intense enough to stay up until 5 AM watching livestreams of competitions halfway around the world...

A lot can happen in a year.

Heh.

kairetwinslovest&S · 02-22-2011, 04:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tsforever (View Post)

TFTNT Anna!

Aww Gladys, thanks so much for suggesting lines from my sig!

HAPPY GOOSE DAY! aka the one year anniversary of Scott and Tessa's Olympic gold medal win! I cannot believe it's been a year already

I've loved every minute of talking to you guys about these two and I hope that continues for a very long time.

I can remember watching their FD last year with my mom, we literally held our breaths for those four minutes, they were so captivating.

(and then the obsession began

) Hope there's plenty more of that to come!

Here's a little video I made celebrating the one year anniversary of their win:

Pure Perfection.

TFTNT.. and articles.. and Lizy the video was super special! I cant believe its been a year.. time sure flys. I hope Scott and Tessa took time together today to remember this day last year and really just enjoy it. Glad I found this forum you ladies offer so much insight and I just love having someone to talk to about this.. gonna admit there isnt many ice dance fans around me and if they are id say they'd prolly love the AM skaters... so thankis to you all!

kris9918 · 02-22-2011, 04:12 PM

Here are some Olympic anniversary themed macros for everybody.

tsforever · 02-22-2011, 04:33 PM

Thanks so much kairetwinslovest&S! Glad you liked the video!

Hacky, love the banner!

Kris, all those macros are AMAZING!!! Literally, all of them are excellent! I love the one about rarity and it's all just so amazing!

kairetwinslovest&S · 02-22-2011, 04:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tsforever (View Post)

Thanks so much kairetwinslovest&S! Glad you liked the video!

Hacky, love the banner!

Kris, all those macros are AMAZING!!! Literally, all of them are excellent! I love the one about rarity and it's all just so amazing!

You can just call me Kaire ( my name).. that might save you some typing time haha and your very welcome...
Kris I love the moment one... def my favorite!
Good job everyone!!!

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Fan Forum > General Discussion > Couples > ScottღTessa #70:"With glowing hearts," the lyrics say - that Monday night, that was something everyone could understand.