A young pair of ice dancers lifted the host country out of its Winter Olympic gloom with a golden performance Monday just as Canadians were questioning their team's medal-winning capability.
Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, who began skating together as children, brought home Canada's first Olympic gold in ice dancing to lift a host nation struggling to cope with a demoralizing ice hockey defeat and diminishing medal hopes.
The win capped a day on which Germany clinched gold in the women's cross country team sprint to go level with the high-flying Americans on seven gold medals apiece in 10 days of Olympic competition.
Norway, a country with a far smaller population which usually punches above its weight at Winter Games, moved to outright third by winning a six gold medals in the men's cross country team sprint.
Canada are now right behind Norway with five golds and Virtue and Moir are set to become the sweethearts of the Games.
Wearing classic white and skating to Mahler's Symphony No. 5, Virtue and Moir concluded their mesmerizing routine with him on his knees and her face in his hands -- bringing the home crowd to its feet to the chant of "Canada, Canada, Canada."
"This is for Canada and Canada is with us," said Virtue, aged 20 to Moir's 22.
Their American training partners Meryl Davis and Charlie White took silver and relegated the Russian favorites Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin to bronze. It was the first time in 34 years that Europeans did not win the ice dance gold medal.
That was not the only novelty, though. British siblings Sinead and John Kerr mixed things up a little as the sister lifted the brother in a rare case of ice dance role reversal.
No comments:
Post a Comment