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Historic Victory in Sochi as Americans Win Gold in Ice Dancing Competition

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Michigan natives Charlie White and Meryl Davis have been ice skating partners for 17 years. Their long body of work paid off in Sochi, where the Jewish White and his partner secured the gold medal in the ice dance title.
Michigan natives Charlie White and Meryl Davis have been ice skating partners for 17 years. Their long body of work paid off in Sochi, where the Jewish White and his partner secured the gold medal in the ice dance title.
A sultry performance that was 17 years in the making yet lasted only four-minutes has launched Meryl Davis and Charlie White to become the first Americans to win the Olympic ice dance title at the Sochi Games on Monday, February 17, according to the Jewish Daily Forward.

In what basically led to a showdown with rivals and Canadian training partners Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, the American couple came out on top and won with a world record total of 195.52.

Their ice adventure began in 1997, according to the JDF, “when a nine-year-old Davis was left blushing and tongue-tied after being told to gaze deeply into her eight-year-old partner’s eyes.”

“We’re so excited, we’re kind of in shock a little. I’m not sure what we’re feeling,” a beaming Davis told reporters after improving on their performance from four years ago, which yielded the pair a silver medal.

“It kind of all came together for us and we’re so pleased to be here. We’re kind of in disbelief.”

White, who is Jewish, added: “To come away with a gold medal is amazing… And 17 years of hard work was justified.”

White’s Jewish origins have been a source of controversy in the media: There have been allegations that he is not Jewish on his mother’s side. But it was made implicitly clear last week by the Detroit Jewish News that he is indeed Jewish, and properly so, on his mother’s side. And the confirmation to the Detroit paper came from a reputable source – proud Jewish grandmother who herself called the Detroit Jewish News,to clarify. And while it is worth noting that White himself was raised in a secular home and does not practice, by bloodline and Jewish law he is indeed one of the chosen people.

White and Davis are coached and choreographed by Igor Shpiland, a Russian Jewish immigrant. Shpiland is based in Michigan and has coached many famous ice dancing teams.

From the moment the two Americans stepped onto the ice, the JDF reported that pair “were soon showing why they have been unbeatable for 22 months.

“They flew around the ice at a frantic pace, seamlessly weaving dazzling lifts and synchronized twizzles into their dramatic performance of Scheherazade – the story of a sultan’s wife whose enchanting tales stopped her husband’s bizarre habit of marrying a new wife every day and beheading the previous one.

“When White held aloft Davis in the splits as he spun around rapidly, the crowd cheered.”

Their journey has led the American pair down a path that has landed them two world championships, five consecutive grand prix finals and a record six successive U.S National titles. It all culminated on Monday with the biggest win of all.

“Gold is something that you dream about. It has been an amazing journey,” the JDF reported White as saying.

Competitors Virtue and Moir had ambitiously hoped to join Russians Oksana Grishuk and Evgeny Platov as the only couples to have won back-to-back Olympic ice dance golds but instead accepted silver with 190.99.

“It’s a pretty ambitious program, and it’s a loaded program, and I think we did it pretty well,” Virtue

With both couples hinting that the Olympics will be their swansong, they played out the final chapter of an intense rivalry that dates back more than a decade.

During that time, according to the JDF, the two skating pairs have not just shared training bases, but they have also shared a coach in Marina Zoueva and a medal haul that includes two world championships each and an Olympic gold.

“There are a lot of sleepless nights that go into an Olympic Games,” added Moir, who returned to an echoing arena once all the crowd had disappeared to kneel over and kiss the Olympic rings at the centre of the rink.

“It has been a fierce rivalry between the four of us and now I think the pressures of these Games are kind of just melting away.”

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