That little two-foot was all it took. Tom beat him by one-tenth of a point in the technical mark on every judge’s card, and that was the difference. By a 6-3 split, Tom became the Olympic champion.
And, when the results were posted, you could’ve heard Kristin’s scream in Montreal!
Afterwards, talking with the rest of the American team, Sophia said the same thing that she had said after the pairs’ competition: "American sweep! American sweep!"
"Not only that, it’s a Kelleher choreography sweep," Andrea teased.
"Well, the only person that can beat Liz is Allison," Tom pointed out. "So, Sophia, that whole American sweep thing? That’s all up to you two!"
"PRESSURE!" Warren shouted, to laughter all around.
Friday began the ice dancing. The Quickstep original dance was the first phase.
Amy and Ryan skated very early, and very well. Their marks were probably a little low, but that was a function of how early they skated. Courtney and Evan skated shortly thereafter, and were just behind their American teammates.
The first of the contenders to skate were the British team, Brenneman and Watts, and they skated lights-out. They’d had a good quickstep all season, but here they really nailed it. The ovation was rapturous and the marks were very high.
Sophia and Warren were next up, and skated their Scott Joplin program perfectly. It was fun and upbeat and got another thunderous ovation. However, when the marks came up, they had been beaten by the Brits by the slightest of margins.
The Canadians, Damphier and Gaudler, the defending World Champions, had a few problems, which dropped them down to third. The Russians were in fourth.
Saturday was the second original dance, the rock and roll. Sophia and Warren knew their Ramones program was as difficult as it gets. They knew that, if they skated it clean, it was unbeatable.
They skated it clean. In fact, they nailed it as perfectly as they ever had before. Even with all the rest of the contenders still to skate, they got a few sixes on the technical mark.
Brenneman and Watts skated well, but not nearly well enough to challenge Sophia and Warren. The Russians were decent, but finished behind the Brits. The Canadians skated fantastically in front of the home-country crowd, and finished second.
Going into the final phase, the free dance, Sophia and Warren had a clear lead. The Brits were in second and the Canadians third. However, it was so close that any of the top three teams could win if they won the free dance. The Russians were fourth. Amy and Ryan, and Courtney and Evan were tied for fifth.
Sunday was an off-day. Sophia and Warren relaxed, saw some other events, and hung out. They were ready for the free dance Monday night.
FINALE (Chapter 170)
Monday night, the Ice Dance finals, the free skate.
Amy and Ryan defeated Courtney and Evan by the slightest of margins to win the battle for fifth place.
Then, the top four couples took the ice for the warm-up. Sophia and Warren would be skating last. They ran through some footwork and warmed up, then stepped off the ice. They went backstage, but in range of a TV, so they could watch the other couples skate.
The Canadians skated excellently. They got top marks and a standing ovation from their home country crowd.
The Russians were just OK, and came nowhere near to the Canadians. Sophia, in fact, said to Warren, "Amy and Ryan should’ve beat that. Courtney and Evan, too. That was weak."
"Ah, well, you know how it goes," Warren laughed.
Then came the Brits. They were good, but not as good as the Canadians.
So, it was all up to Warren and Sophia. The medal winners were set. (Sophia and Warren would have to finish the free dance lower then seventh to not win a medal at all, which wasn’t going to happen.) And the Canadians were higher than the Brits. The final color of the medals would be decided by the Kellehers.
"Ready?" Warren asked Sophia as they waited to take the ice.
"All ready already," Sophia laughed. "It’s been a long road."
"It certainly has."
"We can do this. We can win this thing," Sophia declared.
"Yes, we can. We’re the best ice dancers in the world. Let’s go prove it."
"Damn straight."
They took the ice to thunderous applause. They moved to the center of the ice, to their starting position, and waited for the music.
Warren was dressed in all white. He was wearing a white sweater vest-with black and red trim at the v-neck-over a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and white pants. He was also wearing a white hat. Sophia was wearing a blue dress with ‘wings’ on the sleeves that fluttered when she skated. It was a precise reproduction of the costumes that Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds wore during the ‘dance on the soundstage’ scene of Singing In The Rain.
The music started, the opening passage to the song Singing In The Rain, complete with Gene Kelly’s doo-n-doo-doo’s. The Kellehers started simply, with some side-by-side steps with arms linked, into a spin.
25 seconds in, the music shifted-to You Were Meant For Me, the same music used by Kelly and Reynolds in that soundstage dance scene. It was contrary to ice dance convention to have the ‘slow section’ this early in the program-but Warren and Sophia never let themselves be ruled by ice dance convention. This section was a little over a minute long, and was a tribute to the sustained romanticism of the original movie scene. It was gorgeous and still complex.
The complexity was quickly escalated with the next section of music, the brutally fast Moses. They started out with their side by side footwork, which was fast, powerful, and difficult-and a treat for the audience. It was fun and frisky, and the crowd responded. They continued through the Moses section of music, working in a couple difficult lifts amongst the snappy footwork.
With almost two minutes left in the program, the music shifted again, back to Singing In The Rain. This time it was the end, the sustained instrumental to which Gene Kelly does most of his staggering dance solo in the movie. Warren and Sophia, of course, did it not as a solo, but as a duet. Even so, they tried their hardest to be as faithful to the mood of the Kelly piece as they could.
It started with their circular footwork, in closed position, moving swiftly and surely through the moves. They moved out of that into a quick lift, and then a series of steps that could only be called ecstatic. They loved this program and it showed. They did a spin during a portion of the music that quieted a bit, then came out of that to a series of skipping steps during the crescendo.
After that, the music almost stops-it’s the part in the movie where Kelly is surprised by the suspicious cop-and they pulled into a spin at that point. Then the main theme repeats slower, and they did a series of steps to that. Then they pulled into their final lift, a spinning one, at the part where Kelly sings, "I’m dancing, and singing in the rain." They come out of that into the final repeat of the main theme, which they skipped to, arm-in-arm. Then Warren spun Sophia towards him, and they ended the program on an embrace, grinning at each other, on the final note.
The applause was roof-shattering.
They left the ice ecstatic. "You couldn’t have done it any better," June told them. "Just perfect." They kissed, and babbled happily, and waited for the marks.
In a mailbox in Oceanview, Massachusetts, sat a letter. It was addressed to Warren. It was from the admissions department of Boston University Medical School.
In her purse backstage, Sophia’s cell phone had started ringing. Voice mail would, by the end of the night, have a number of messages from different companies, wanting to discuss more endorsement deals.
Somewhere in Sophie’s body, a fertilized egg was making a journey. It had traveled down the fallopian tubes, and was now preparing, in the next couple of days, to attach itself to the wall of Sophia’s uterus. The creation of the Kelleher’s second child, another daughter, was well underway.