More later

I'll expand on this post tomorrow, but for now - Virtue and Moir remain light years ahead of everyone else competing. There were glitches that, for every other team save VM, are hand-waved, but VM are measured against their best selves. This is especially true of Papadakis and Cizeron - glitches, stumbles, slightly off-time - who cares.

I don't think ice dancing, as a sport, cares anymore about unison, or how close a team skates together. Nor does ice dancing care much about direction changes and close hold.


Tessa VIRTUE / Scott MOIR FD 2016 Autumn... by diodio0013

I'm currently reading through the skating forums.

I don't know what the ISU was setting up by putting a journeyman team on the top of the world championship podium two years running, whether it was in anticipation of Virtue Moir's comeback or not, but for me, personally, the idea of actually having to discuss Papadakis and Cizeron vis a vis Virtue Moir and their respective chances is exhausting. One theory, I supposed, is that all of the other teams were soundly defeated by Virtue and Moir in the past, while Papadakis and Cizeron weren't even in the picture, and so the sport can pretend anything it wants about them. That's the depressing angle. The angle that these teams will take turns beating each other until the Olympics is another depressing angle. The somewhat not depressing angle has to do with something like - Skate Canada sold out Virtue and Moir from 2010-2014 in exchange for establishing, post-2014, a Canadian rink as the top ice dance training center in the world, which was done using P&C. Now VM are there to legitimize this deal.

So far, reading the forums, I see some participants think already Virtue and Moir look happier compared with how they looked skating the music Marina Zoueva of course FORCED upon them in 2013-2014.