Watch Pre-Teen Tessa Virtue And Scott Moir Skate Together Years Before Their Olympic Triumphs

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir have already taken home gold at the Pyeongchang Olympics — they mounted the podium with their fellow members of Team Canada to win the Team Skate competition last weekend — but they are not finished yet. The iconic ice dancing duo, who won gold in 2010, silver in 2014, and hold a number of other titles, will try to take home the individual ice dance medal in a few days. As the National Post reported, it’s likely to be the last Olympics for the pair, whom few expected to return to competitive skating after the 2014 games.

Virtue told the Post that it wasn’t the drive to win that brought them out of retirement in 2016. Instead, it was the love of the sport. Being able to create a routine and showcase it to the world continues to be a passion for the pair. For Virtue and Moir, like most elite athletes, competition was a focus from a very young age. They first became skating partners at the ages of 7 and 9, and in a Macleans interview last month, they credited their early coaches with teaching them how to communicate and build trust.

Contrary to popular speculation, Virtue and Moir are not married, nor do they have any romantic involvement. In the Macleans article, they said their focus is to tell a story on the ice. Moir said their early awkwardness is comical in retrospect.

“It’s funny to look back—Tessa was seven and I was nine. I remember there wasn’t a lot of talking at the beginning. We were terrified to hold hands for quite a while.”

Virtue gave fans a glimpse of what the early Virtue-Moir partnership looked like with a throwback video she posted last month in the run-up to the Pyeongchang games.

Tessa Virtue, now 28, and Scott Moir, now 30, are not guaranteed the gold in the individual ice dancing event. As NBC News reported last month, French pair Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron are the favorites to win gold, with Virtue and Moir favorited to take home silver. The Canadian pair bested the French team at all three of their direct competitions last season; however, Papadakis and Cizeron, aged 22 and 23 respectively, are world-record points holders, just ahead of Virtue and Moir.

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir were the flag-bearers for Team Canada going into the Pyeongchang Olympics, which started February 9. Competition wraps up on February 25. As Vulture reported, the ice dancing short program is set to air February 18 in the U.S. and Canada, with the gold medal awarded on Monday, February 19.