--- title: Winter Olympics 2018: Best Ice Dancing Teams description: Rivalries are part of the DNA of sports, even when it’s more of a friendly competition than fight-to-the-death battle. canonical: https://time.com/5139072/best-ice-dance-teams-winter-olympics-2018/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-02-08T21:00:33.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-01-15T18:58:20.000Z og:title: The Story Behind the Best Rivalry in Olympic Figure Skating og:description: These two teams keep flipping back and forth between first and second place og:url: https://time.com/5139072/best-ice-dance-teams-winter-olympics-2018/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1b92d89fcf0e0178/698926c9e76ad2192b630f3d/figure-skating-winter-olympics-2018-france-canada.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2405 og:image:height: 1353 og:image:alt: figure-skating-winter-olympics-2018-france-canada og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Story Behind the Best Rivalry in Olympic Figure Skating twitter:description: These two teams keep flipping back and forth between first and second place twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1b92d89fcf0e0178/698926c9e76ad2192b630f3d/figure-skating-winter-olympics-2018-france-canada.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Story Behind the Best Rivalry in Olympic Figure Skating > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. ## Video: How To Watch Ice Dancing [Watch (HLS stream): How To Watch Ice Dancing](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/XFDXhju7.m3u8) (3:10)  _Published 2018-01-30. How to watch Ice Dancing, courtesy of Meryl Davis and Charlie White, 2014 Olympic Ice Dance Gold medalists._  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Updated: Jan 15, 2026 6:58 PM UTCPublished: Feb 8, 2018 9:00 PM UTC How to watch Ice Dancing, courtesy of Meryl Davis and Charlie White, 2014 Olympic Ice Dance Gold medalists.  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Updated: Jan 15, 2026 6:58 PM UTCPublished: Feb 8, 2018 9:00 PM UTC At every major [skating competition](http://time.com/5090778/team-usa-2018-winter-olympics-figure-skating-lineup/) this season, two teams have flipped back and forth between first and second place. Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron from France and Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada are indisputably the [top dance teams](http://time.com/5134647/ice-skating-couples-at-winter-olympics-2018/) competing at Olympics. And there might be a big reason for that — their training. They share the same coaches and train on the same ice in Montreal. When they finally skated off against each other on Olympic ice in the ice dance event, they traded off for the top spots again. Virtue and Moir recorded the highest score to date in the short dance, while Papadakis and Cizeron outscored them in the free skate. When both sets of marks were tallied, Virtue and Moir prevailed to win their second Olympic ice dance title, and their fifth Olympic medal over three Games. Papadakis and Cizeron, in their Olympic debut, earned silver. The last two times the two couples have faced off against each other, they each skated away with one title each. At last year’s world championships, Virtue and Moir beat Papadakis and Cizeron while at this year’s last major international competition before the Olympics, the [Grand Prix Final](http://www.nbcolympics.com/news/french-ice-dancers-papadakis-cizeron-break-world-record-again), the French took the gold. The Canadians own three world championships, while the French earned two. And Virtue and Moir are two-time Olympic medalists, while Papadakis and Cizeron will be making their Olympic debut in PyeongChang. The French, however, hold the [highest overall score](http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/highest-score-in-figure-skating-total-score-%28ice-dance%29) from a competition this season over the Canadians.  France's Gabriella Papadakis and Guilaume Cizeron celebrate with second-placed Canada's Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir during the awards ceremony after winning the ice dance free dance programme at the Grand Prix of Figure Skating final in Nagoya on Dec. 9, 2017. Toshifumi Kitamura—AFP/Getty Images When the people you train with become your competitor, things can get tricky. Especially when the coaches, Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon, don’t play favorites. “We train them all to win and to be champions,” says Dubreuil. “I don’t train second place or third place.” Dubreuil and Lauzon’s skating school roster almost reads like the [competitor’s list at major international competitions](http://time.com/5133932/north-korea-figure-skating-coach-olympic-journey/). In addition to Papadakis and Cizeron and Virtue and Moir, the married couple also train U.S. champions Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue, the Spanish, Danish, Armenian and Bulgarian champions, as well as some Japanese teams and a few other Canadian teams. Olympians and two-time world silver medalists in ice dance, Dubreuil and Lauzon married in 2008\. When they decided to open their own ice dance school, they wanted to recreate their own experiences training in Canada, the U.S. and Europe. “If we were going to pursue a second career in skating as coaches, we wanted to do it from the inside out,” says Dubreuil of their comprehensive program. Skaters have access to nutritionists, performance coaches who help with the mental aspects of training and competing, as well as life coaches to iron out the inevitable frictions that can come from working with a partner in training for something as all-consuming as the world championships or Olympics. **Read more:** [**These 7 Ice Dancing and Figure Skating Pairs at the Winter Olympics Are Couples in Real Life**](http://time.com/5134647/ice-skating-couples-at-winter-olympics-2018/) But while their Olympic podium favorite students train together, there isn’t the drama you might expect from such a potentially fraught arrangement. “They trust that we are going to give each of them 100%,” says Dubreuil. During the season, she, Lauzon and another coach, Romain Haguenauer, rotate working with each of the top teams. “There is no jealousy because there is a lot of transparency; everybody knows what the other is doing,” she says. For Dubreuil, her students are less like rivals and more like siblings — yes they often are pitted against each other, but in end, each has their own unique style and appeal. With Papadakis and Cizeron, it’s their fluidity and power which makes it seem as if they aren’t gliding on the ice at all but floating above it. Virtue and Moir bring a precision and work ethic that enhances their electric connection with each other that makes their routines so attention-grabbing. Which team will glide past the other for gold in PyeongChang? The judges will have to decide, but Dubreuil can’t. “Some days I see the three top teams on the ice and I look at them and I almost have tears in my eyes,” she says. ## Transcript [00:00] Here we go. This is Foxtrot. This is waltz. And this [00:04] is Killian. Hi everyone. I'm Meryl Davis. And I'm Charlie [00:07] White. And we are the 2014 Olympic Ice Dance [00:10] champions. And we are here to tell you what you need [00:12] to know about ice dancing. One of the most common [00:14] questions we get is what's the difference between [00:17] figure skating and ice dancing. The truth is that ice [00:21] dancing is sort of a subdiscipline of the greater sport [00:24] of figure skating. There's pair skating and there's ice [00:27] dancing. Both of those are couples, and a lot of people [00:30] are getting them confused. So in ice dancing, we do [00:33] not get to do lifts over the head. In pair skating, you [00:36] will see throws across the ice. We do not get to do that [00:39] in ice dancing. You will see side by side spins. We do [00:41] not get to do that. Ice dancing is a little bit more [00:45] theatrical. As per the name, it's more dance based [00:46] and so, often times, if you see a couple in a hold like [00:50] this, it's probably ice dancing. [ chuckle ] One of the [00:53] great things about ice dancing is How close we can be [00:56] and that's really difficulty comes in. When we're skating [00:59] around you want to see that we're moving together that [01:03] we're facing each other, because that is a level of [01:05] difficulty. So, even if I swizzle her and then we come, [01:08] and then we turn, and then we turn back, and then we [01:11] turn back the other way. What's important is that we're [01:14] not just skating. Side- by- side the whole time. But [01:17] when you see the top teams, you'll see that they are [01:19] skating really close togehter. Their feet are almost [01:21] touching. And yet, they're able to avoid hitting each [01:24] other and making mistakes. One of our favorite [01:26] elements The twizzles. [ LAUGH ] A [01:31] twizzle is like a spin that you'll see a lot of skaters do [01:34] in figure skating. However, it moves across the ice. [01:37] And what makes it so difficult is that the blade that [01:40] we're skating on, it has a rocker to it, so it's not just [01:43] flat. So you have to try to hit right basically beneath the [01:47] ball of your foot. You wanna try to stay centered on [01:49] that as you're twizzling across the ice, but it's really [01:52] easy to start rocking back and forth on your blade as [01:55] you're turning. Should we try to do some side by side [01:58] twizzles here? When was the last time we did twizzles, [02:01] probably Sochi. Okay ready, [02:08] and twizzle. [ SOUND ] [ LAUGH ] Slow got it. Slow got [02:09] it. [ LAUGH ] And when turn to the left over the head or [02:11] throws, we do the lifts and so the lifts sometimes are [02:14] quite acrobatic. We want to try to make them unique [02:16] and different and impressive and dificult in their own [02:20] way. So often times, the girl stands on the guy's leg like [02:23] this and also the things that he can do To [02:27] make it different and unique. But one of the most [02:30] interesting questions that we get is people are always [02:33] worried about the girl standing on the guy's leg. And [02:36] whether or not that's painful. You wanna take that one? [02:37] [ LAUGH ] It is. [ LAUGH ] So another really [02:41] important thing in ice dance is we want to seemlessly [02:43] integrate the elements in sort of all of the things that [02:47] really are difficult. Into the program and make it seem [02:51] less disjointed. You have four minutes and [02:56] obviously, we have to fit in certain required elements [02:58] but at the same time, you want the audience and the [03:02] judges to feel like they're a part of the story that you're [03:04] telling. 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