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.

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