Davis and White top Virtue and Moir for ice dance lead

Sochi, Russia (SportsNetwork.com) – Once again, Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White will battle Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir for ice dancing supremacy.

Davis and White won the short dance program at the 2014 Olympics on Sunday with a record score of 78.89, edging Virtue and Moir for the top spot. The defending Olympic champions earned a short dance score of 76.33.

Medals will be awarded Monday after the free dance.

It’s simply been a battle between the two couples, who also double as training partners, for the past four years.

Virtue and Moir won Olympic gold four years ago in front of the home crowd in Vancouver and captured the world title in 2010 and 2012. Davis and White finished behind the Canadian duo at the 2010 Olympics and at the ’10 and ’12 worlds, while finishing ahead of them for world gold in 2011 and 2013.

The United States has never won gold in the competition, which made its Olympic debut at the 1976 Innsbruck Games. In addition to the silver won by Davis and White four years ago, the duo of Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto captured silver in 2006 and the team of Colleen O’Connor and James Millns won bronze in 1976.

While it’s clearly a two-team battle for gold, a number of couples are in the mix for the bronze medal.

Russia’s Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov thrilled the home crowd and placed third with a score of 73.04, just ahead of France’s Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat, who posted a score of 72.78. Another Russian team, Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev, finished fifth at 69.97.

Pechalat and Bourzat won bronze at the 2012 worlds, while Bobrova and Soloviev took bronze at the 2013 worlds.

Two other American couples finished among the top nine Sunday. Madison Chock and Evan Bates placed eighth and the sibling pair of Maia and Alex Shibutani were ninth.

Canadians Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje finished just ahead of the Americans in seventh.

Categorized in: Olympics