2010 Olympic Champions and 2014 Olympic silver medalists Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir (CAN) returned in style to competition this season, taking gold in their two Grand Prix events Skate Canada International and NHK Trophy.
Q=interviewer (Tatjana Flade for ISU), T = Tessa Virtue, S = Scott Moir
Q: Now that you really came back, competing at Autumn Classic and in the Grand Prix, is it how you imagined it to be or is it somehow different?
T: It is different. In a lot of ways we’re walking back into the same world, see a lot of the same faces, and the same buildings and volunteers and so it feels very familiar, but our approach is so different and our team is new that there are a lot of elements that bring a fresh energy as well. So I think it is a bit of a mixture, but it certainly feels we are in the right place. We’re happy to be here, to be in the mix, to be on competitive ice.
Q: What was the emotion like when you registered at accreditation, checked your forms, went to practice?
T: On the one hand it’s very familiar to us, we’ve done this many times, and in a lot of ways we come out with a fresh perspective and with a new team and things feel different. We’re in a great place in training, right on track where we want to be this season. We’re thrilled with our material and we’re so excited to focus on our job and to skate the way we know we can.
Q: What changes did you make when you came back?
S: Well, it’s just different being a full-time athlete. We’re lucky that we were able to stay in the skating world and we had to some extend stayed in skating shape. But to accomplish our goals, we’re talking about top five … just getting back into skating shape, run-through shape, really we leave that up to our coaches. At the beginning of the summer it was a bit of a struggle. We know it takes time. Two years off is a long time and the sport has moved ahead. So we know that. That was a big part of our comeback, we try to help ourselves out by getting an early start on that and we’re glad we did, because it was a challenge.
Q: Did you have some doubts about coming back after you started training?
S: When we came back, it was in a great atmosphere, to be honest, we really enjoyed that. We had struggles, some hardships, but that’s what we signed up for. We almost enjoy those now looking back more. It wasn’t a super easy summer, but we enjoyed every moment of it. That’s what we expected and for us that’s what sport is about and that’s stuff we miss, kind of that grind and we’re just going to keep building and using that motivation to kind of push us forward, because I know we’re not out of the woods yet, until 2018.
Q: How do you think you have changed as people in those two years?
S: We changed a lot. Our buzz word right now is perspective and our perspective of the sport has changed and I think that’s powerful for us, because we feel even more than ever than this is for us, we’re enjoying the sport, we love going into the rink every day, see each other, see Patch, Marie and Romain and the environment that they have created. It’s kind of fun for us to be I don’t know if I call this role models, but at least able to pass on a little bit of what we learned in our 20 years of skating together to some of these younger and very, very talented athletes like Gabi and Guillaume, the Danish team we skated with, Nick (Nikolaj Sorensen) and Laurence (Fournier-Beaudry). There is something about that. I think that has changed. We’re trying to be a lot more positive about the sport. With a little bit time away you really realize the great things about it. You know, I was ready for a break after 2014, for sure. Being back feels nice, it’s nice to have people in the sport that we really love and find the people that have a similar vision as us. That’s what we really aligned ourselves with our coaches Patch and Marie and our team off the ice are just people that look at it the same way we do.
Q: How did that idea of coming back mature?
S: I think that’s a great word, mature, because it wasn’t like that when we decided to come back after 2010, which was pretty much like a look at each other ‘are you done?’ ‘no, I’m not done yet’, ‘perfect, let’s skate’. After 2014 we didn’t retire, because we weren’t sure. We knew we need to give it time. We found out the more time we took away from the sport the more we couldn’t imagine sitting at home for 2018 without at least giving it a shot. We wanted to make sure that it was right, so we didn’t announce it for a while. We wanted to make sure that it was with a different team. We asked Patch (Patrice Lauzon) and Marie (-France Dubreuil) and they tested us for a little bit to see how serious we were.
T: We always left that door open. That’s why we didn’t officially retire. We wanted that option on the table and even in the way we approached our show skating it was all to set ourselves up for our potential comeback in the way we crafted programs and in the way we trained for those performances, but I think we both felt it equally and that was important to us, because we couldn’t do it if just one of us wanted it more than the other. We gave ourselves time, then we sort of touched base and take a few months and let it come together and evaluate again.
Q: How did you pick your new team?
T: Really, when we were deciding to come back, it was in large part because of Marie and Patch and Romain and the school that they have. I can’t imagine this comeback without them as our coaching team. I don’t think it would have happened. So if for some reason they said no when we picked up the phone and called them, I don’t think we would be here today. Just connecting with them and collaborating artistically and technically and sort of trying to put their vision into place and into practice has been a great joy. We also have a new off-ice team. That has been very exciting as well. I think we’re becoming better athletes, well rounded athletes and smarter athletes.
Q: You have moved to Montreal, how did you adjust?
T: Oh we’ve absolutely fallen in love with the city, it is hard not to. We’re in such a phenomenal area. There is so much this city has to offer, so much art and culture and fashion. It’s inspiring. It’s an Olympic city, there is just so much there. It’s nice, at this stage of our career I also feel like there is life outside skating and Montreal gives that to us.
Q: How much did you pay attention to what was going on in Ice Dance while you were away?
T: We definitely disconnected a little bit, but then we were sort of able to come back on the other side of things and be involved in the broadcasting press with both CBS and TSN (Candian TV channels). That offered a unique challenge and enlightening to sort of see things from that perspective, which we loved. We loved working with both teams. We’re going to miss to work with TSN and that crew again being on the ice this time. When we were at Worlds you obviously kind of know what is happening.
S: Sports grow. We know that we have to be better than we’ve ever been. That’s part of the challenge. We can’t come back two years later, three years, four years, trying to be the same athlete and win. That just doesn’t work.
Q: How much does it help to train with the current World Champions Gabriella Papadakis/Guillaume Cizeron?
S: It helps a lot. And I think that people are probably a little bit surprised, because, at the end with Meryl and Charlie we got critizised a bit for that situation and now we kind of are hopping back into a very similar situation, but we always thought that it is to our benefit to train with the best. We love the environment, the credit goes out to Patrice (Lauzon), Marie-France (Dubreuil) and also Romain (Haguenauer) for creating that environment and we need that to train every day, inspired by all athletes. Gabi and Guillaume are easy ones, when we watch them they kind of floor us, but when we’re watching young kids skate we find things that inspire us, so we’re lucky to have our training mates.
Q: How did you feel received by the other skaters?
T: To be honest, we don’t have the finger on the pulse of the skating world necessarily, but in the arena in Montreal and with the training environment that Marie, Patch and Romain have cultivated it was a very welcoming feeling, it was very warm, supportive, inspiring and that’s a testament to the coaches and the tone that they set. So elsewhere I’m not sure, at least in Montreal it was great.
Q: Now when you come to competition you met also other skaters.
S: It’s nice to see people we haven’t seen in a while. I think we all understand that is what sports is about. Everybody should be there. If you feel like you can compete, you should be at competition. We just appreciate the personal side of things. We’ve competed against Anna (Cappellini) and Luca (Lanotte) for a very long time. It’s great to see them, it is great to see her engaged and now see her married, Luca has become a father. It’s nice to see kind of the personal side of that. It’s just a different side of things for us that we never really thought of. We only thought of them always as competitors. Now getting to know the people is a pleasure.
Q: At NHK Trophy, you set a new record score in the Short Dance and a new record total score. Did you expect this to happen in your third competition since your return?
S: Tessa and I always have been a team that doesn’t really pay attention to the points. It is kind of great to hear that you got a world record score, but it doesn’t really mean too much. We know that both of these scores are going to get shattered probably in two weeks’ time. For us, especially at this time a year, especially this season, especially competing against such great skaters the focus is just on our skating and just being in the mix again.
Q: Ice Dance has become very competitive with so many top teams. How do you feel about that?
S: I think for Tessa and I to have a perspective of being away for a little bit and to sit in the stands in Boston and watch how great the level of ice dancing is, is, to be honest, a little intimidating. But at the same time it is a great feeling. The current state of ice dance has grown a lot since 2014, these guys are really pushing the sport to new levels. You probably never heard me say that before, but I like some of the new rule changes that the ISU has made for the short dance especially and I feel like it has grown. I think that was maybe surprising for a lot of people why we wanted to come back, because there is not really space for us. But to us, that’s the challenge. We like the challenge, that’s why we came back. Our goal for this fall season and this entire season actually is just to kind of be in the mix, to kind of prove that we can hang with this talent level. We now are kind of seeing these young athletes that have come up with this new system for their entire career and it’s really paying off, the skating skills, the technical level is just so much higher and that is exciting for ice dance. Watching in Boston was an absolute thrill. I hope it will be the same this year.