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.
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