Tessa Virtue
Off-ice, pretty normal ....
... but when skating ...
... nothing about them is ordinary or mediocre.
On ice, they are...
On ice, they are...
Olympians.
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They first skated together in 1997.
Igor Shpilband and Marina Zueva began coaching them in 2003 and have been with them ever since.
Below is their OD (original dance) for the 2004 Junior Nationals.
By 2006, they were named the best junior ice dancers in the world.
It's easy to see why:
[2006 Holiday Festival On Ice]
They had to take some time off during the 2008-2009 season due medical injury involving Tessa's shins. She underwent surgery, took some time to recover, and went back out on the ice probably a little sooner than she should have. Following that, the team has had some incredibly successful seasons.
2010 was a big year for this Canadian ice dance team.
[2010 Canadian Championships Gala Performance]
By this time, they were training together for 5 hours a day.
Their hard work certainly showed at the 2010 World Championships:
Their big show of 2010, however, was the Olympics in Vancouver.
They placed second in the compulsory dance, earning a new personal best score of 42.74 points, just 1.02 off the lead. They earned 68.41 points in the original dance, placing first in that segment of the competition. They scored 110.42 points in the free dance, easily winning the gold medal overall with an insurmountable total score of 221.57, surpassing silver medalists Davis and White by 5.83 points. In the free dance, they received four 10.00 marks from the judges in the program components, two for the performance execution and two for interpretation, a feat never before accomplished by a figure skater/or team under the International Judging System. They became the first Canadian as well as the first North American ice dance team and the youngest dance team to win the Olympics, and the first ice dance team to win the Olympic gold on home ice and also the first ice dancers to win gold on their Olympic debut since the inaugural Olympic ice dance event in 1976.
Tessa and Scott's good friends, Meryl Davis and Charlie White (who are also Tessa and Scott's competitors) took silver at the Olympics.
Both teams (Virtue & Moir and Davis & White) are coached by Igor Shpilband and Marina Zueva ...so the 4 skaters train together in Michigan.
Recently…
Scott and Tessa answered some interesting questions for "Orangeteam Interviews" in 2011 ... get a glimpse of their off-ice personalities:
Their 2011 Grand Prix Finals FD (free dance):
[a take on the music from a movie called "Funny Face" with Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn]
^ They really are athletes! ... And they really do get into character with their dances!^
As of Sunday [February 12, 2012], they claimed gold at the 4CC (Four Continents Ice Dance Competitions)
- with team USA (Meryl Davis and Charlie White) snagging the silver and another Canadian team bringing home bronze.
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Through the years:
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Scott and Tessa's book "Our Journey: From Childhood Dream to Olympic Gold"
You can also visit their website.
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