Tessa Virtue
I couldn't believe just how emotional I was about the London Olympics. Before the Games even started, I was reading a newspaper sitting in a hair salon and my mom looked over at me and I was just sobbing, because something about seeing the rings and hearing the athletes' excitement and just kind of knowing exactly what they were going through.Collection: Mom
For athletes, it is unhealthy to be one-sport focused, especially at a young age. I believe in exposing kids to lots of activities - there are great advantages to being a well-rounded athlete and human, no matter the field of play.Collection: Age
My cottage is on Lake Huron and it's always nice to have the chance to get away and hear the waves crashing while reading a good book.Collection: Chance
My grandmother used to make the most incredible chicken divan, and my mom has carried out that tradition. It's my comfort food. It's amazing how you can almost taste the memories with a dish like that! And the more leftovers, the better.
You're never going to regret working out or being active. You might regret not doing it, you might regret pressing that snooze button, but you'll never regret getting physically active.
Let's face it, there's just different access that young boys have to sport and teams than girls.
There's a difference between feeling nervous and feeling: 'I'm not worthy of taking the ice.'
I don't often wear perfume, because I am sensitive to smells, but vanilla has a warmth to it, and it's inviting and soft.
When I am home on a weekend, you can bet I am relaxing in sweats!
I've learned a lot about pain management.
I was so lucky. I grew up with an incredibly strong grandmother, mother and sister. All three, independent, fierce, clever women who were hard workers, had goals and visions for themselves, and were really ambitious. And, they didn't apologize for those goals.
My mom has always shopped for me. I'm so lucky that I have an in-house stylist.
I definitely dress based on my mood.
Obviously, I've reaped the benefits of sport and activity. But not many girls, as it turns out, even have the resources available to them to be physically active or to maintain that as they go through high school.
It's nice to socialize with some normal students, and kind of separate from my skating life with academics.
School for me has always been a really great balance with the skating.
I knew without doubt that I would try and continue my education as I was skating.
In my family, education was always important.
There's something about an Olympic Games and representing Canada and being part of that greater team, so when we're 70, we'll be wanting to be Olympians still. That stays with you, I think.
The challenge is to balance the technical elements and what is required of us with being artists and telling a story.
We're so excited to skate in a Canadian market.
The honour of carrying the Canadian flag... brings with it a sense of duty, privilege, and above all, great pride.
I can get very quiet and internalize things.
Truthfully, what we do in training is 10 times harder than what we ever have to do in a competition.
Sometimes you forget how good it feels to just move, to express, to make different shapes, and let your body be free.
When I'm not on the ice, I do interval work on the bike or the elliptical, trying to mimic a four-minute routine. But it doesn't come close.
I'm quite fair and I need to protect myself with a good ball cap. Any time I can rep the Jays or the Leafs is great.
You put yourself in the public eye. You're kind of an open target.
Experience is a really wonderful thing, and in a way we've been fortunate to have had so many ups and downs in our career, and a lot of struggles and a lot of sacrifices. But again, that's just an athlete's story.
It's so uncommon for athletes to push themselves the way they do and not have injuries as a result.
I love golf clothes. I have a lot of fun with the little golf skirts and vests.
Part of the attraction to golf may be that it's just a score on the sheet and there's not much you can do about it.
It's funny that I love golf so much because I'm not usually drawn to things I'm not so good at. It's all about practice and working and not getting discouraged.
I've been told I'm really bad at flirting.
Any chance we have to skate for another Olympic medal, it's amazing.
We have the opportunity to make people feel something, feel some emotion, and then also we get to be just pure athletes, and from a pure technical standpoint do things are really technically demanding, and very challenging. So it's that balance between the two that we love. And we love to play with the limits and push ourselves.
It's very tough to transfer ballroom technique onto the ice, to give the illusion of the proper hip motion and position, with the speed and glide of the blade.
My proficiency with ballet was on a steep decline the more I skated.
We care so much about the sport that we invest everything we have into it.
Being out with an injury is always a tough thing, and coming back, you're never sure where you might fit in.
As women, we're busy. We're under stress and under pressure, and the expectations are so high for us, so the first thing to go is self-care.
Part of being an athlete is constantly striving for more. We're looking for perfection in a world where that doesn't exist. No matter what we do and what we accomplish or how we perform, we're always looking at areas we can improve upon.
I'm very task-oriented. The idea of constantly pursuing something with purpose helps me to stay focused.
Throughout a competitive career, you can certainly lose yourself trying to please the judges.
We're huge Drake fans, I mean, but who isn't?
I want people to like me and, if there's any doubt, I sort of worry.
I was always the youngest and I think girls, period, try to psych each other out, there are a lot of head games.
I love getting away from the rink and being in school.
We're always learning about our bodies and learning how to take care of them properly and how to perform at our best.
What we portray on the ice is really important to us, and we love getting into character and telling a story.