Davis & White Pretty Much Done Competing

Reigning Olympic champions announce they will not defend their title next year, though they refuse to actually call it a retirement.

Since they won the gold at the 2014 Olympics, the question has hung in the air as to whether Meryl Davis & Charlie White would ever compete again. Fans asked it even more after their long time rivals, Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir, did return this season. But it always looked firmly like they’d moved on and weren’t coming back. Wednesday morning on the Today Show, they officially confirmed it: they’re out. At the very least, we won’t see them next season. When Olympic champions out that long don’t come back for the next Olympics, they’re none too likely to come back ever.

They have no plans to, and talked as if they probably won’t form them. They did refuse to use the word “retirement,” which would put it beyond doubt. But even then, it sounded less like “maybe later,” and more like just “never say never,” or even like they don’t think it appropriate when they’re still skating in shows.

It might have actually been less surprising if they’d gone ahead and called it a retirement. It would have been a shock if they actually had announced a comeback. The two of them have shown every indication of enjoying and prospering in the lives of retired Olympic champions, performing in shows all over the world while not having to dedicate their entire lives to the ice anymore. Some skaters in that position may still miss their old lives, but plenty don’t. White has recently started to follow wife Tanith into commentating. They talk about possibly being in Pyeongchang in some other capacity. It’s a safe bet that’s what he’ll do.

A Long and Successful Career

All in all, Meryl Davis & Charlie White spent two Olympic cycles as major players in the scene, and one on top of it. Their first World Championships was in 2007, where they came in an impressive 7th. Until 2009, they were in the shadow of his future wife and her partner, Tanith Belbin & Benjamin Agosto. But they claimed the first of their record six national titles in 2009, when they were out with injury. They should have won their first world medal that season, very narrowly losing bronze to a less-than-100% Virtue & Moir mostly because the judges were in the habit of scoring the latter higher.

Since then, neither team’s lost to anyone besides each other. Come 2010, Davis & White usurped Belbin & Agosto at Nationals, and at the Olympics, they won the silver medal behind Virtue & Moir, which they would repeat at Worlds. In the final year of the original dance, before the short dance took over, theirs became a classic:

At the 2011 World Championships, with Virtue & Moir again at less than 100%, Davis & White became the first American team to win the ice dance title at the World Figure Skating Championships. Virtue & Moir reclaimed it in 2012, with a good deal of debate among fans as to whether they should have. But that was the last time Davis & White ever lost at all. In 2013, even with Virtue & Moir at full strength, they won their second world title. In 2014, it all culminated in the U.S.’s first ever Olympic gold in ice dance:

Enjoying Non-Retirement

Right after the Olympics, the two skaters went up against each other on Dancing with the Stars, raising their profiles further. He made the semi-finals, while she won. They even combined the two skills, doing both ballroom and ice dance at the 2015 Shall We Dance on Ice. But mostly they’ve continue to dazzle audiences on the ice. They even accompanied Wednesday’s announcement with a performance at Rockerfeller Rink:

White has also recently become politically active on Twitter, starting with one heartfelt tweet just before Donald Trump was inaugurated.  He’s continued his criticisms of him since, always keeping himself civil even as the vitriol’s been thrown at him. It’s earned him a whole new level of respect from fans, who still aren’t used to figure skaters being politically outspoken, with a couple of exceptions. This he intends to continue to do. As his words about it make clear, he sees himself as still representing our country, even if he no longer competes for it.

Next: Four Continents Tries Out Pyeongchang’s Ice Arena

We will no doubt be seeing as much of them as we have already for at least the next couple of years, and hopefully for much longer.