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(Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images) Gold medalists Team Canada celebrate on the podium in the victory ceremony after the Figure Skating Team Event Ice Dance Free Dance on day three of the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games at Gangneung Ice Arena on February 12, 2018 in Gangneung, South Korea.
The figure skating team of Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, Patrick Chan, Kaetlyn Osmond and Gabrielle Daleman were awarded Canada's first gold medal of the 2018 Olympics and their first gold since the figure skating team event was added in 2014 where Canada won silver.
Heading into the final day of the team event Canada had 45 placement points after the completion of the four short programs as well as the pairs free skate. The Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR) had 39 while the United States was in third with 36 points and Italy with 35.
Chan put in his best skate of the season landing two superb quad toes to open the program. It wasn't a perfect skate but he made it work by adding a triple Salchow onto his triple Lutz after he had missed the opportunity to do it earlier in the program.
“We had determination this time around,” he said of the team mentality. “We saw the potential we had in Sochi and didn’t capitalize on it. This time we really wanted to nail it into the coffin and win this thing. It’s such an exhilarating feeling because we’re such a tight-knit team, and we’ve been from the same generation so we want to win this medal for all of us.”
Virtue and Moir closed out the competition for the free dance portion. They scored 118.10 to officially lock up the gold medal.
Embed from Getty Images Embed from Getty Images Embed from Getty ImagesOlympic champions! #TeamCanada's #figureskating team wins gold!
— Team Canada (@TeamCanada) February 12, 2018
Read more 👉 https://t.co/qdyYjmgPfr#PyeongChang2018 | @SkateCanada pic.twitter.com/TFnii2Tgep
With files from Paula Nichols of the Canadian Olympic team website.