PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA—With apologies to the splendiferous Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, once and again Olympic champions, most medals ever won by anybody in figure skating.But ice dancing — go to hell.Because the Canadians who brought down the house Tuesday at the Gangneung Ice Arena, had the audience up on its feet and a-roar with every breathtaking move executed, came this close to being squished into silver by incorrigible judges.They never learn, no matter how often outed and admonished for score-fixing, still gaming a system that was completely overhauled following a black-eye scandal at Salt Lake City — rigged marks and placement-swapping — and apparently getting away with it.Read more: Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir break short dance record at Pyeongchang OlympicsOpinion | Rosie DiManno: Ice dance competition a battle between Canada and FranceOpinion | Rosie DiManno: Virtue and Moir melt the ice with raw, sensual performances and we can’t look awayVirtue and Moir, with their incandescent performance to “Roxanne”, from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, did not win the free skate portion of the competition. Those laurels went to their rivals, Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France, with a long program score of 123.35. The Canadians ranked second with 122.40.It was the combined score — short and long together — which put Virtue and Moir over the top and over the moon, four years after only slightly less dubious scoring in Sochi invested gold on Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White, eight years after the Canadians triumphed in Vancouver at their Games debut.Canadians: 206.07. French: 205.28.See how scary close?Should never have been.That Virtue and Moir emerged from their third and final Olympics restored to golden was despite the machinations of two judges in particular — American Sharon Rogers and Marie-Christine Hurth of France. Their inflated scores for the French team, in the previous ...
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