Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada perform in the original dance competition at the world figure skating championships in Los Angeles on Thursday. (David J. Phillip/Associated Press)Canada's Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir remain in third place in the ice dancing competition at the world figure skating championships in Los Angeles, following Thursday's original dance.
Virtue, 19, and Moir, 21, from London, Ont., were a disappointing sixth in the original dance, barely hanging on to third place overall. Heading into Friday's free skate, they have an overall score of 100.42, less than one-tenth of a point ahead of the fourth-place U.S. team of Meryl Davis and Charlie White (100.33).
Skating to Won't You Charleston with Me?, Virtue and Moir showed plenty of energy and style. Virtue wore a flashy red dress, while Moir sported a white tuxedo shirt — with the bowtie undone — and black slacks.
They executed a clean program, with the only blemish being Moir's struggle to keep his balance on a couple of the spins, resulting in a small deduction.
"I just overchecked my turn a little bit and fought too hard to get it back, so I was chasing the twizzle a little bit," Moir said. "But when you're twizzling beside the best twizzler in the world, when you make a little mistake you can really tell."
Neither seemed happy with their score. Virtue appeared to mouth the word "yikes" as the marks were announced at the Staples Center.
Russia's Oksana Dominina and Maxim Shabalin lead the competition after the original dance with an overall score of 105.45, followed by Americans Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto with a score of 104.81.
The other Canadians in the event, Vanessa Crone of Aurora, Ont., and Paul Poirier of Ottawa, sit in 12th place.
Virtue and Moir won the silver medal in the event at last year's world championships in Sweden. But Virtue has struggled with injuries this season, staying away from competitions until January's national championships in Saskatoon, which the pair won.
"It's such a relief to be able to skate more sessions and get back to almost normal training," Virtue said.
"I was really anxious and antsy, and as you can imagine, it's hard in a partnership when Scott's ready to go and well-trained and I felt like I was holding the team back. It's refreshing and a confidence booster to know we have much more training under our belt."
At February's Four Continents championships in Vancouver, Virtue and Moir's first international competition of the season, they showed some rust, stumbling out of a few sequences and finishing second to Americans Davis and White.
With files from the Canadian Press
