By Benjamin Blum, CBC Sports
Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir stand alone in the upper echelon of Olympic figure skating.
The Canadian ice dancers won gold after an overall record-breaking performance at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. It's the second-career Olympic ice dance title for the venerated duo and their third overall including their team gold from earlier at these Games.
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Virtue and Moir finished with a world-record overall score of 206.07 points to edge France's Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron by 0.79 points. American siblings Maia and Alex Shibutani earned bronze.
Virtue and Moir's 122.40-point Moulin Rouge free skate beat their personal best of 118.33 set at December's Grand Prix final.
GOLD | @tessavirtue and @ScottMoir are Olympic Champions!#FigureSkating #PyeongChang2018
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The French duo scored a free-skate record 123.35 for their routine set to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata to bring their total to a brief world record of 205.28, one night after a costume malfunction in the short skate.
Virtue and Moir, originally from London and Ilderton, Ont., respectively, join Russia's Pasha Grishuk and Evgeniy Platov as the only ice dancers to win two golds in the event. Their three Olympic figure skating golds also move into a tie with Sweden's Gillis Grafstrom, Soviet skater Irina Rodnina and Norway's Sonja Henie, who each won three individual titles.
Virtue and Moir, who won the event in 2010 in Vancouver, also have two silver medals (ice dance, team event) in their Olympic collection from the 2014 Sochi Games.
American-born Canadian Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje of Waterloo, Ont., finished seventh with 181.98 after earning 107.65 while skating to Je Suis Malade by Lara Fabian.
The Toronto-based tandem of Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier placed eighth with 176.91 after earning 107.31 for their James Bond medley. Gilles and Poirier are skating in their first Olympics.
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