WebProNews

Tag: ice dancing

  • Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir Take Ice Dance Silver In Sochi

    Tessa Virtue and dance partner Scott Moir from Canada won silver for their performance in the ice dance event in this year’s Winter Games in Sochi. In the free dance portion, they earned 114.66 points, their best for the season. American pair Meryl Davis and Charlie White scored 116.63 points. The Canadians had an overall score of 190.99, which was not enough to best the Americans, who got 195.52 and the gold. Taking the bronze are Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsapalov of Russia, who scored 183.58 overall.

    Virtue and Moir are two-time world champions, and are Davis and White’s training partners. Both teams are top contenders in ice dancing, capturing international ice dance titles left and right. The Canadians won the event in the 2010 Winter Olympics, with the Americans getting silver. Last year, the Americans began edging out Virtue and Moir, winning the Grand Prix Final in December and the 2013 world title.

    Aside from being training partners, the two teams also share the same coach, Marina Zoueva. When you have one coach for two rival teams, things could get a little dicey.

    In an interview, Moir stated that there had been times when he and Virtue did not feel like Zoueva was on their side. He expected Zoueva to work with them like she did four years ago, but that didn’t transpire. The pair said they knew why their coach spent most of her time with the other team, but there had been differences that the Canadians had to fix on their own.

    Moir confessed that there had been occasions when he and Virtue had to reassess where they stood with Zoueva, and had spoken to her on numerous occasions to say that they would not be satisfied with second place. They had some unusual things happen in the past year and felt that the gold medal was being pulled away from their reach.

    Virtue and Moir have not announced their plans for the future, but stated this would be the last time they would be joining the Olympics.

    Images via Facebook

  • Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue: Coach is to Blame

    Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue lost their chance at a gold medal in ice dancing to their rivals and training mates Meryl Davis and Charlie White. So, what’s next for the duo?

    Finger pointing, apparently. And the person at the focus of the pointing finger is the trainer of both couples and former soviet ice dancer, Marina Zoueva.

    Moir and Virtue say they believe part of the reason they lost to Davis and White is because the coach had become more focused on the American team, according to AFP.

    As the Americans began to pass the pair up in skill and accomplishment, they say she slowly began to focus more on White and Davis. Which seems to have paid off for the US, now that we have our first ice dancing gold to add to the list. Of course it wasn’t just the training. White and Davis can also attribute their success to the comfort of a seventeen year working relationship and unebbing support from their moms.

    “We were both pretty blunt with her in the fall and leading up to the Olympics. We weren’t happy and we felt that sometimes she wasn’t in our corner,” Moir said of Zoueva. “We went to Marina on countless occasions and told her there was no way we would be happy with the silver medal. We’ve had some odd things happen this year that haven’t happened before. We expected that Marina would march with us and be on our team like she was in Vancouver … she wasn’t.”

    One of those odd things Moir spoke of was Marina’s glaring absence at the couple’s national championship competition. However, when a coach has two really great teams on her hands, what is she to do?

    Moir admitted, “She’s not in any easy position. My Mom’s a figure skating coach and she always says to me ‘you know she (Zoueva) can’t win no matter what’ … well you know she does win no matter what.”

    “There’s always an angry set of parents and an angry set of skaters out there so she has a hard job.”

    The Canadian duo was quick to say that they weren’t displeased with their silver medal in ice dancing, ”We couldn’t have asked for more about our performances,” Virtue said. ”It’s nice to be satisfied and content with our job. We’ve managed to create the Olympic moment.”

    What does the future hold for Moir and Virtue? Well, retirement is expected, but they haven’t confirmed or denied that yet.

    Image via You Tube

  • Meryl Davis And Charlie White: U.S. Ice Dancers Win Gold In Sochi

    American ice dancing pair Meryl Davis and Charlie White made their nation proud by winning the gold in the Winter Olympics in Sochi. It is the first gold for Team USA in ice dancing; they had previously won silver four years ago in Vancouver. They also won bronze in this year’s new team event.

    The duo, who both hail from Michigan, scored in the free dance portion with 116.63 points and finished with 195.52, enough to beat Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, who won the event in 2010. The Canadian pair, who also happened to be the American team’s training partners in Detroit, scored 190.99 points. Winning bronze are Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov from Russia, and at fourth place are Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat from France.

    The pair’s intricate choreography and superb technical skills were brilliantly showcased. They glided and spun across the ice to the music from “Scheherazade,” ending their dance with White on one knee, and Davis resting her head on his back.

    They have been asked about their chemistry, and whether it extends off the ice. In a 2012 interview, White said that they get asked about it a lot, and while awkward, they have become used to it. For them, it is central to their sport to show they are in love on the ice, which makes it easy for the audience to think they are a couple even after they’ve taken off their skates.

    Dancing together for more than half of their lives is also a big factor in making them feel comfortable with each other, which is obvious in their intimacy on the ice, and the spirit with which they danced. The 27-year-old Davis and 26-year-old White were first paired together as kids—when Davis was 10 and White, 9. They had been skating together ever since, and it definitely showed in their performance on Monday during the ice dancing finals.

    http://youtu.be/hkqMcm3HUmM

    Image via YouTube

  • Meryl Davis and Charlie White: Moms Helped Win Gold

    Meryl Davis and Charlie White have just scored the ultimate goal and have brought home to the USA that coveted gold medal during Sochi’s winter olympics.

    This is an historic gold medal, as the US has never won for ice dancing before. The pair have been training together for seventeen years and have worked hard every day of their lives to get where they are today.

    Their journey began as awkward kids of 8 and 9, having a hard time trying to pull off the “chemistry” needed to fake passion and other sorts of emotions that grade school kids are completely unaware of.

    They have certainly come a long way and their familiarity and ease with each other are mainly credited with giving them the edge that they needed to beat out a number of great ice dancing athletes on Monday.

    However, the two might say that there were also two other magic ingredients to the mix that made all the difference in the world.

    “Charlie is very anti-superstition – we don’t have any concrete good luck charms we rely on,” Davis said, according to People. “But I think our moms are as close to good luck charms as we have.”

    The pair’s moms have never missed a competition, said Davis, “and one tradition we have is that before we compete, we take a moment to give our moms a hug before we warm up.”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkHNASQM0rs

    “We’re so grateful to have them with us wherever we go in the world,” Davis says of the moms.

    They are so grateful that the gold-winning duo participated with P&G in their “Thank You, Mom” campaign. That gave them the chance to feature their moms in the above video and thank them for all the years of cheering, support, and just being there as Mom.

    It’s clearly a dream come true for two amazing athletes and their devoted moms.

    Image via You Tube

  • USA Takes First Ever Gold in Ice Dancing

    The USA gains another gold medal, and our first in ice dancing. Graceful pair Meryl Davis and Charlie White wowed the crowd with a cheerful “My Fair Lady” performance in the short program on Sunday, then another spectacular performance to “Scheherazade” in Monday’s free skate portion of the competition.

    The pair went on to nail the long program with a season best of 116.63 points and an overall score of 195.52, according to the New York Times.

    They beat out 2010 champions and chief rivals Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada. They danced to pieces by Russian composers Alexander Glazunov and Alexander Scriabin.

    Bringing home the bronze for ice dancing Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov of Russia, who performed “Swan Lake” and earned a total of 183.48.

    Meryl Davis and Charlie White have been skating together for seventeen years, beginning when she was 9 and he was 8. An awkward situation for any co-ed pair of that age, they overcame the weirdness with a clever trick thought up by their coach. Marina Zoueva, who trained both top finishing teams, stuck a smiley face sticker to White’s forehead in order to give the girl somewhere else to look besides her partners eyes.

    Davis and White, as well as Virtue and Moir, trained at the Arctic Edge ice arena in Canton, Michigan, which is just outside of Detroit. They have all four come so far from their early beginnings.

    “Having been together 17 years plays a huge part in how comfortable we are on the ice and in big moments,” Davis said after the short program was complete. “We’ve been through so much together. When we took the ice, we felt calm.”

    Their calm demeanor and familiarity went a long way to help them relax and focus on winning the gold in Sochi and to defeat many truly excellent performers.

    Image via You Tube