Decorated ice dance duo Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir captivated the sports world with their gold medal-winning performance at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang.Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press
When Canadian ice dancers and thrice Olympic champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir retired from the sport in 2019, they weren’t only the most decorated figure skaters of all time – they were a global phenomenon.
Their on-ice chemistry during the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games catapulted them into a celebrity stratosphere that transcended figure skating.
They were profiled by media outlets around the world, became a trending topic on social media, and eventually appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where they were grilled about their relationship status. (For the record, they were not a couple and are both now married to other people and have children.)
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Now, seven years after hanging up their skates, “Canada’s Sweethearts” sat down with The Globe and Mail to talk about the difficulties of retiring, whether they still talk regularly and a controversial new book by their former training partner and rival, retired French ice dancer Gabriella Papadakis.
The duo – who have been speaking to reporters to promote the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation’s Quest for Gold program, which supports high-performance amateur athletes – also addressed whether they will ever go on tour again.
(Spoiler alert: it’s not “no”!)
The Globe’s Robyn Doolittle talks with Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, Canada's most decorated figure skaters, who retired from the sport in 2019.
I want to start by taking a beat to revisit Pyeongchang. How often do you guys watch that Moulin Rouge program?
Virtue: I never do. Do you?
Moir: I remember the feeling like it was yesterday. We were so prepared. We were so present. And we enjoyed the heck out of it. But I don’t like to watch. I just see the things that I wish I had another couple of weeks to improve. I don’t know – what do you think, T?
Virtue: I don’t watch it. But it comes in handy. I was away recently and my son was sick and my mom was looking after him and she said the only thing that would console him was watching our skating on TV. And so he would just look at the TV and say “mama.”
Virtue and Moir claimed gold in dramatic fashion in 2018, with a Moulin Rouge routine that piqued people's interest online, vaulting them into celebrity status.Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press
Let’s talk about retiring. Was it hard or was it freeing?
Moir: It was freeing. I think I felt grateful that we had the opportunity to kind of fulfill everything we wanted to within the sport and then be ready to use sport as a tool to move on to the rest of our lives.
Virtue: Almost every session that we had with our sports psychologist, we touched on retirement in the two years leading into Pyeongchang. So we had a plan. We got to leave the sport on our own terms having accomplished what we had dreamed. Having said that, it was still hard to lose that part of our identities, and that really clear sense of purpose. There was a void afterwards.
People were obsessed with the two of you and very wanting you two to end up together. What was that like for your loved ones or any romantic partners?
Moir: We grew up together. My brothers and my cousins, they barely remember me before Tessa was in my life. With romantic partners, it was a bit difficult. I think that’s also when I knew that my wife was the one for me. She was so encouraging. I mean, we are playing characters [in our routines]. At the same time, there is real love there. It’s just in a different way than we love our life partners. That is the part – when you asked me if I miss skating – I miss Tessa.
Virtue: Scott, I miss you, too!
Virtue and Moir say that while they're still in touch, they don't talk as much as they'd like to in their postcompetitive days.
Do you guys still talk?
Moir: Not as much as we should. We both have started different parts of our life and there doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day. We do have lots of long phone calls which are pretty great, but not enough face time. Thanks for bringing this up [pretends to cry].
Virtue: Well, that’s all relative. The cadence in which we keep in touch is probably normal. It’s just that we were so used to being around each other 24/7.
So are you going to do another tour? Will you guys skate together again?
Moir: We’re retired. But I will say – to give a little cliffhanger – my daughter’s been asking. “Aunt Tessa, are we gonna see you skate together?”
Virtue: You at least have your skates on. The last time my skates were sharp was 2019. (Moir is the head coach and managing director of the Ice Academy of Montreal’s Ontario campus. Virtue is an executive adviser at Deloitte.)
Is that true? How often do you skate?
Virtue: Maybe once a year? I don’t know what I would do on the ice if Scott wasn’t there. If you were there, maybe it’d be fun to do a Tango Romantica or some improv. The peak of our career lives in our minds and I’m okay with leaving it at that.
You are married to the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Morgan Rielly. Do you ever watch the games and have some suggestions on their skating?
Virtue: I just watch in awe. I mean, I, it’s so neat to be around someone who’s chasing excellence. I’m also really intrigued by the larger team dynamic. I watch the games and look at body language. I’m curious, like, are you being nice to the refs? What are you saying?
France's Gabriella Papadakis, seen here competing in the 2018 Games, recently wrote a book that was critical of her partner, Guillaume Cizeron. She also admitted that she'd wished Virtue and Moir would make mistakes in their routine while they competed against one another.Maddie Meyer
I want to ask you guys about Gabriella Papadakis’s book, Pour ne pas disparaître (So as Not to Disappear).
She was critical of her former partner, Guillaume Cizeron – whom she won the Beijing 2022 Olympics Games with – calling him controlling and demanding, which he denies. NBC recently removed her from a commentator role at the Milan Olympics after concerns about her ability to be neutral, as Cizeron will be competing with his new partner, Laurence Fournier Beaudry. Gabriella also said in the book that in 2018 she was rooting for you two to make a mistake while competing against you. What was your reaction?
Moir: I haven’t seen all of the quotes myself, but I think that’s her going back into her mind in 2018 as a young athlete. I don’t think that’s the way they finished their career. It feels like the book is a very honest exploration of her feelings in many ways. I can say, as someone who watched a lot of Gabby-Guillaume tape, there must be some leftover emotional resentment just from that breaking up. I can’t imagine ever skating with somebody else, and so to see Guillaume skating with someone else, I’m sure that it’s very difficult. People don’t really understand how intense that relationship is.
Virtue: It makes me think about the perils of competition and pressure and stress and the vulnerability that comes with putting your art form out there. There’s so much to it when you’re in competition. I don’t believe you’d find an athlete out there that didn’t have similar thoughts now and then.
We are weeks away from the Milan Olympic Games. What is your advice to Team Canada?
Virtue: I hope that they can stand with conviction and confidence in their training. I also hope they know that there’s a country rallying behind them to support them. Sometimes we got lost in thinking that anything less than gold was a failure for Canada, and what we didn’t know at the time was that really people just wanted to see us do our best.
Moir: I’m already getting a little bit nervous because it’ll be my first Olympics coaching. I have to prepare my pep talk. I learned a lot from Patrice [Lauzon, one of Virtue and Moir’s coaches]. He’d just be like: ‘Love you guys. Good luck out there.’ That meant more than anything – to know that he had our backs and he was proud of us no matter what we did. I’m sure that my message will be very similar with a little bit of ‘go get’em.’”
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.