Three-time Olympic champion Tessa Virtue condemned the Canadian NOC for trying to study the possibility of the return of Russian and Belarusian athletes to the 2024 Olympics in a neutral status. Together with the most titled Canadian figure skater, another 41 athletes signed the statement. The signature of Scott Moir, with whom Virtue won all the titles, is not under the document.
The text of the statement is very ambiguous and illogical. Canadian athletes who condemn the National Olympic Committee's public statements emphasize that the removal of Russians and Belarusians is recognition of the role of international sport in geopolitics. The Olympic principle «sport is out of politics» is completely forgotten.
At the same time, the proposal of the Secretary General of the NOC of Canada, David Shoemaker, to make the condemnation of the Russian special operation in Ukraine a condition for admission to international competitions, was called unreasonable and inappropriate. According to the athletes who signed the loud statement, there is no need to look for conditions for the return of Russians and Belarusians before the end of the conflict. It is difficult to say how carefully Virtue read the document.
In December 2005, for the first time I had a chance to see the duet Virchu/Moir on the ice at the finals of the Junior Grand Prix in Helsinki. He was then held separately from the adult. Marina Zueva, who worked in Detroit in a duet with Igor Shpilband, brought very young skaters to the capital of Finland (Tessa was 16 then, and Scott was 18). Canadian dancers moved to the US to train with Russian specialists.
“Is it possible not to love these guys?” Zueva said then. “They are fantastically talented and hardworking. And they respect Russian culture very much.” Canadian figure skaters themselves spoke about this both in Moscow during the 2011 World Cup and in Sochi during the Olympics. Although at these competitions the duet Virtue/Moir was inferior to their partners in the Detroit group, the American duet Meryl Davis/Charlie White.
The Americans ended their careers after the Olympic triumph, and Virtue and Moir, who won gold in Vancouver, returned before Pyeongchang to win two more medals of the highest standard in South Korea, in team and individual competitions. Especially valuable was the award in the individual tournament, won in the sharpest rivalry with the French Gabriela Papadakis and Guillaume Sizeron. These duets trained together at the Montreal school, headed by Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon.
After the collapse of the coaching tandem Zueva and Shpilband, all the strongest duets, including Virtue/Moir, remained with Marina. She took outwardly calmly the departure of the Canadians to Montreal. She claimed that she understood the skaters who needed a new coach and a new challenge for new victories. It's hard to say how sincere Zueva was.
Having ended her brilliant career after Pyeongchang, Tessa announced her engagement to Morgan Reilly, defender of the Toronto Maple Leafs NHL club. This hockey player as part of the Canadian team won the 2016 World Cup, held in Russia. Tessa does not demand to remove Riley's teammates and other Russian masters from performances in the strongest hockey league in the world.
For some reason, she directs her energy to create problems for the organizers of the Summer Olympics in Paris. Neither the opinion of the IOC nor the NOC of Canada is accepted by the three-time Olympic champion. Although it is possible that Tessa signed the loud statement without even reading it. So after all, it happened in the USSR.