Canadian Athletes of the Weekend: Virtue & Moir

Every Monday, the CBCSports.ca team profiles a Canadian athlete that excelled over the weekend. This week's winner is a pair of athletes: Canadian ice dance champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir.

Tessa Virtue, of London Ont., and Scott Moir, of Ilderton, Ont., continued their march towards the upcoming world figure skating championships in London, Ont., by capturing their fifth national ice dance title in the past six years on Sunday in Mississauga, Ont.

Their overall score of 187.23 was tops amongst their fellow Canadian competitiors, but the duo say they still have room for improvement before the worlds in March. Namely a pair of violations they were hit with on Sunday for holding lifts for too long, which docked them points.

"[Ice dancing] is a bit fussy," Moir said. "And to be honest we were kind of excited because that was an awesome skate for us. There was no doubt in our minds. That's exactly what we want to do. Now the [violations] don't take away from it but it would be nice to have a big number to go home and work off of."

It seems that the two-time world champions and Olympic gold medallists are still hungry for success, and will have a chance to showcase their talent and work on their routine at the Four Continents championships in February in Japan, a competition they qualified for with Sunday's win.

Around the world

Check out where Canada's top athletes of the weekend were in action on our interactive map:

Honourable mentions

• Patrick Chan (Toronto) skated to his sixth straight national men's figure skating title in Mississauga, Ont.
• Marie-Eve Drolet (Laterriere, Que.) won the women's short-track title at the Canadian Open in Montreal while Michael Gilday (Yellowknife) took the men's.
• Marianne St. Gelais (St. Felicien, Que.), and Charles Hamelin of (Sainte-Julie, Que.), won 500-metre gold at the Canadian short-track championships in Montreal.
• Christine Nesbitt (London, Ont.) won silver and Jamie Gregg (Edmonton) took long-track speed skating bronze in Calgary.
• Erik Guay (Mont-Tremblant, Que.) finished 4th in men's downhill in Wengen, Switzerland.
• Michael Roy (L'Ange Guardian Que.) was 5th at the snowboard world championships in Stoneham, Que. 
• Kaillie Humphries (Calgary) and Chelsea Valois (Zenon Park, Sask.) raced to bobsleigh silver in Innsbruck, Austria.
• Lyndon Rush (Humboldt, Sask.) and Lascelles Brown (Calgary) placed sixth in two-man bobsleigh in Igls, Austria.
• Ryan Cochrane (Victoria) nabbed freestyle swimming gold at the U.S. Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, while Noemie Thomas (Richmond, B.C.) won gold and Audrey Lacroix (Pont-Rouge, Que.) took silver in the women's 100-metre butterfly. Barbara Jardin (Montreal) took silver in the women's 400 freestyle.
• Milos Raonic (Thornhill, Ont.) advanced as far as the 4th round at the Australian Open in Melbourne, before falling to Roger Federer.