Hometown reaction to Virtue & Moir’s silver

(Updated)

It was a silver medal for Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue in Sochi today. Friends and family cried and cheered as the defending champions skated a perfect dance, but even so there was little surprise in the crowd that the Americans took the gold.

As Moir and Virtue laid their hearts out on the ice in Sochi, a huge crowd sat transfixed in a London sports bar. And when the scores came, so did the cheers and whistles.

Moir’s uncle Joe was beaming. “How do you put an exclamation mark on a career than back to back performances like they did? The colour of the medal doesn’t matter.”

Scott’s father is one of twelve siblings. Uncle Paul owns this Shoeless joe’s franchise — his wife and scott’s mother are identical twins. They are figure skating coaches. The Moir clan feel they’ve married into the sport.

For this crowd, Tessa and Scott are both family. They’ve been skating together for 17 years and they’ve had that same chemistry since they started as children.

“Beautiful! We’re so proud of them. Honest to God, it’s the Olympics. how can you not be proud?

But there is also frustration. Ever since the worlds last year in London, there have been rumours that the outcome of this competition was decided before the athletes even arrived in Sochi.

“When people make predictions and the predictions came right, I don’t think they have to explain any more.”

“We cleaned up the drugs in the sport, we’ve got to clean up this part of the sport. We’ve got to get the subjective part out of the sport.”

To some, the gold won by the Americans is tarnished.

“Charlie and Meryl are great skaters. Scott and Tessa are fantastic dancers. That’s the difference.”

He says today’s Olympic fans are savvy, and the days of judges thinking no one will notice a fixed competition are long gone. But there is little bitterness in the crowd.

“They’ve changed the sport of ice dance. They did it on their own. Every point they got they earned and they deserved.”

Virtue and Moir plan to retire from Olympic competition after these games.

Image: CP