Davis, White of US win Olympic ice dance gold
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| Meryl Davis and Charlie White of the United States pose for photographers with the U.S. flag after placing first in the ice dance free dance figure skating finals at the Iceberg Skating Palace during the 2014 Winter Olympics, Monday, Feb. 17, 2014, in Sochi, Russia. |
SOCHI, Russia
(AP) -- Through 17 years of grueling practices, of defeats and
victories, Meryl Davis and Charlie White insist they've never considered
parting ways.
A perfect pairing, they were
nearly flawless at the Sochi Olympics, and on Monday they became the
first Americans to win an ice dance gold medal.
"The
closest we came to breaking up, I can't pinpoint one because there
hasn't been one," Davis, 27, said. "Certainly there have been struggles.
It hasn't been easy to get where we are. ... It's a partnership which I
couldn't have asked for more.
"Charlie and I are very different. We used those difference to balance it out. There has never been a moment of doubt."
Tessa
Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada, the 2010 champions, took silver, while
bronze went to Russia's Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov.
Davis
and White won silver in Vancouver, but in the four years since they
have overtaken the Canadians, their training partners in Detroit under
Russian coach Marina Zoueva.
The reigning world champs scored 116.63 points in the free dance to finish with 195.52, 4.53 ahead of Virtue and Moir.
"No
athletes like it to sit in this position," Moir said. "We came here to
win the competition. But it's easier when we see them and know how hard
these guys work."
When their program to
"Sheherazade" ended with White on a knee, Davis rested her head on his
back in exhausted elation. The two started skating together in 1997 in
Michigan, and on the biggest day of their career, they performed just as
they had visualized it.
"That in itself justified 17 years of hard work," White, 26, said.
The
music swelling over the final minute of the program, their feet were in
nonstop motion, yet every step was intricately choreographed. Their
lifts were a blur as White spun across the ice with Davis held aloft,
their movements and expressions still fierce despite the draining
demands of the performance.
As they told the
story of the Persian king and the woman who enchants him, White was
regal in purple velvet, Davis beguiling in a lavender dress with jewels
shimmering on her midriff.
They now have one
medal of each color after winning bronze in the new team event in Sochi,
the first American figure skaters to own three.
Virtue
and Moir had become the first North American ice dance gold medalists
at their home Olympics in Vancouver. Their free dance to Russian
classical music told the story of their own partnership, which also
stretches back to 1997.
In a performance at times tender and at others triumphant, Moir kissed her hand at the start and again throughout the program.
"I
think there is relief," Moir said. "It has been a journey to get here
since 2010, a lot of sleepless nights to get to the Olympic Games. If I
could only have been that 22-year-old at Vancouver.
"The reason we stayed in is we wanted a different journey. Now, the pressures of this game are just melting away."
Ilinykh
and Katsalapov were just ninth at last year's world championships but
are now the latest Olympic ice dance medalists from Russia, finishing
7.51 points behind the Canadians. She's only 19; he's 22. The home fans
started cheering when the first few notes of "Swan Lake" played for
their free dance, and they were roaring when it ended with Katsalapov
collapsed on his knees and Ilinykh weeping.
"The
program builds and builds and builds," Katsalapov said through a
translator, "and the audience gave us energy to keep building it more
and more."
France's Nathalie Pechalat and
Fabian Bourzat were fourth, 6.26 points out of bronze. The other U.S.
teams, Madison Chock and Evan Bates and siblings Maia and Alex
Shibutani, finished eighth and ninth.
Russia
has won 18 of 33 medals in ice dance's Olympic history, but now North
Americans own two straight golds. Virtue and Moir have said they'll
likely retire. For Davis and White, talk of the future can wait until
this historic victory starts feeling real.
"We
wanted to fight for the best performance we could give and we did that.
You dream of this for so long, work so hard, and they worked hard,
too," White said, referring to Virtue and Moir. "They always have been
with us, pushing us, and we couldn't have done it without them."
