Two-time Olympic ice dance champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir will extend their indefinite break from competition through the fall Grand Prix season, an agent for the Canadians confirmed.
Virtue and Moir, who last competed in PyeongChang and haven’t said whether they will return at all, are headlining a Canadian tour of skating shows for the second straight autumn.
They’ve been asked often since the Olympics whether they are retiring. Their refrain: They don’t know.
“It definitely feels like [this is our last Olympics],” Moir said on TODAY in PyeongChang, hours after their ice dance gold. “If it is, this is a great way for us to go out. ... It feels right. It feels like a good end.”
Italian Carolina Kostner, the 2014 Olympic bronze medalist and 2012 World champion, is also being promoted as part of the Canadian tour. A representative for Kostner said a decision on whether she will compete in the fall has not been made.
Virtue and Moir took two years off after the 2014 Sochi Olympics before announcing their comeback in February 2016. They won all but one of their competitions in the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons, becoming the first skaters to earn five Olympic medals (boosted by team-event silver and gold in 2014 and 2018).
In their absence, French Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron improved on their PyeongChang silver medal to earn their third and fourth world championships the last two years.
U.S. Olympic ice dance bronze medalists Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani took the 2018-19 season off and haven’t said whether they will return at some point.
Canada’s other top skaters from the PyeongChang Olympics -- Patrick Chan, bronze medalist Kaetlyn Osmond and pairs’ bronze medalists Meaghan Duhamel and Eric Radford -- have announced retirements.
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