Tessa VIRTUE / Scott MOIR (CAN)

-We think everyone are happy with the news of your coming back.

T: Thank you! We are excited about it.

-First, please tell us the reason you decided to coming back to competition.

S: There are a lot of reason that we decide and strive for competitions again, but we thought we need to rest after 13-14 season. While we were apart from skating world once and discuss with wider viewpoints we gained, we could notice we have a passion to continue skating and create new things. Of course, we love to skate in shows, but we miss the atmosphere of the competitions. Then we started training with Marie-France Dubreuil & Patice Lauzon. From there, everything rolling as snowman. It’s really exciting for us to start training and skating. We really enjoy the process. It seems so natural to come back & challenge new things, in this way.

-Why do you choose Dubreuil & Lauzon as coaches?

S: Because we wanted to work with World Champions. (lol)

T: There are so many things to work with them, but we think it’s meanful because we are determined to do. We feel that’s right and don’t need to be in confusion. We really like their approach for skating, their way to teach techniques &styles. We love the team they build with Romain & Pascal. And there are wonderful skaters like Gabriella & Guillaume and Madison & Zachary. Here has an atmosphere with positive, cooperative, and encouragement. Our motivations well up by standing on ice with them. We think it’s best environment to get back our passion. We know we need to have different sense from the past. We think it’s worth to put ourselves under different coaches when our career goes to new step.

-You both debut World Championship in Tokyo. On the other hand, it’s last championship for Dubreuil & Lauzon.

S: Yes, that’s true. We have built good relationship with them. We feel we really get along with them. Fortunately, we could be in time their last career as athletes. We could see how they control themselves and lead other skaters. It’s wonderful lesson for us. When we were in shows, they are close to us, so it’s right timing (to train with them) because we are good friends all the time. The relationship may be changed a little, but their team has warm atmosphere. It’s important for our career to work with them.

-Did you go and see World Championship this year?

S: Yes. It’s a little weird that we don’t compete despite we came there for World Championship.

-I think the style of icedance changed a little while you are not in competitions. How do you feel?

T: That’s true. We have strong impression for situation of icedance now. We feel uncomfortable feeling just a little while we saw the competition. Because we are part from competitions and watch performances analytically with CBC crews. But it’s truly fun to watch performances. Especially final group is fun. There are many talented skaters, and I can’t imagine how the competition goes on. I was inspired so much. It made me remember how hard we do training. There are many wonderful skaters now. So we need to focus for our goal & purpose of our coming back.

-3 years ago, you made era of icedance., so you are expected that again.

T: Thank you. I do my best.

S: For us, the biggest challenge is that we can’t perform similar programs we performed before. In fact, we don’t want to perform similar programs. It’s easy to say “We will do different things.”(lol) But we recognize that, push ourselves and need to create new things.

-Do you already choose programs ?

T: I want to talk about it, but I can’t yet.

S: We are working now, and it’s so exciting.

T: We are doing training so hard. We are back to the winding road again. We feel that, and we want to stand ourselves in superior position. For that, we have trained for many months. We want to have a good start in Montreal we will begin full-training in June. We want to start new things with our best and want to train so hard. So I can’t tell you about programs.

S: I can just say… Our SD will consist of those 3, hip-hop, swing and mid-night blues. It will be fun.

-How is your lives in Montreal?

S: It’s just beginning.

T: We spent about 8 days, or not? We’re happy that we could find apartments, but we have CSOI tour after this. So I can’t move till June 6th. But we joined a training camp in Montreal for a week, and we love here. Montreal has art culture and exciting place. We’re happy to be back in Canada after 10 years in US. It’s special to be back in my country.

-In your coming back comment, Tessa-san said “live my best as an athlete.” How different about an athlete life and general life?

T: Athlete by nature like us love sports. We love hard training and love that putting pressure on myself. We need a distance from them after 17 years spent with a lot of sacrifices and dedications. We need to challenge other things and broaden our minds. It’s necessary for our mental and physical. Then we don’t need to face a large quantity of schedule. But we miss that situation. Maybe we miss to have own goal. When I wake up, I clearly know what I want to achieve, and what I do training for. We imagine that we watch next Olympic Games in home, and we feel something loss. It’s so hard to join Team Canada. So we never want to regret. We don’t want to feel why we’re not coming back after 5 years.

S: Last challenge.

T: Even if we feel anxiety a little.

-Scott, you said “our approach will be automatic and philosophical.”

S: Yes. Automatic- We have worked Igor & Marina for 10 years. But Pat & Marie-France have a wonderful different style. They are very aggressive. Now we try to do accept it. In addition, we bring in soft knee movement of British style. We already have begun it. We need to remake our skating. So we need to practice automatically. And another one is artistic sense. We think we want to be true to our style. We want to enjoy every day if possible. In some cases, we need to skate with the program we can’t enjoy. But we have only 2 years, 4 programs left. So we want to put our best for that, and want to enjoy skating every day. And hopefully, it make to show our difference, even just a little.

-Patrick Chan talked about coming back advice for you in 4CC press conference. “Don’t have a big expectation.”

(T&S: very laud laugh)

S: It’s easy. (lol)

T: But I think we don’t come back if we don’t have big expectation. (lol)

S: That’ true. (lol)

T: The feeling pushing us. After that, back to reality. But the big expectation will be our passion focus. We expect ourselves in part. We have more true feeling, not the feeling of desire for our best skate. So we don’t have another expectation. We just want to love the process ( for Olympic Games.”

S: Expectation is weird. For us, big expectation is necessary for me to act. Tessa & I want to win. Want to be champions again. For that, we know we need to practice much more. So we keep to have such an expectation to push ourselves now. For that, we need to do a lot of things step by step.

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