MARSEILLE - Veteran ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir sealed their golden comeback by winning the Grand Prix Final in world record style on Saturday as they eye Olympic gold in 2018.
Canada's Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir celebrate after winning the Senior Ice Dance free program during the ISU Grand Prix Final in Marseille, southern France, on December 10, 2016
The Canadians -- Olympic champions in 2010 and silver medallists in 2014 -- are returning this season after 'retiring' two years ago.
They followed wins in Skate Canada and the NHK Trophy with a first Grand Prix Final gold in Marseille on Saturday.
They beat France's two-time world champions Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron with a new world record mark of 197.22 points in the elite skater competition.
The total surpassed the previous best 195.52 achieved by Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White on their way to gold at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
"For us this title is really huge," said Moir after their "Pilgrims on a Long Journey" routine landed them a first gold after four silvers.
Papadakis, 21, and Guillaume, 22, scored 192.81 points for silver with Americans Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani achieving bronze with 189.60.
Moir admitted they had surpassed even their own expectations. "Our goal this year was to make the Grand Prix Final and be in the mix," said the skater from Ontario.
"It's nice to win this title and to be in this group of such talented athletes.
"The state of ice dance has come quite a ways and that was not something we expected, this makes it not easier but harder for us."
Virtue, 27, and Moir, 29, have a career spanning two decades, with world titles in 2010 and 2012 in addition to an Olympic gold and two silvers.
Their love of the sport was reinforced during their two-year absence, they said.
"At the beginning of the summer it was a bit of a struggle. Two years off is a long time and the sport has moved ahead," Moir said.
"We're just going to keep building and using that motivation to kind of push us forward, because I know we're not out of the woods yet, until 2018."
Before Sochi they had trained alongside Davis and White in the United States. This time they trained with rivals Papadakis and Cizeron in Montreal.
"It helps a lot," said Moir. "People are probably a little bit surprised, because, at the end with Meryl and Charlie we got criticised a bit for that situation and now we kind of are hopping back into a very similar situation, but we always thought that it is to our benefit to train with the best."
The training partners will go head to head again at the world championships in Helsinki in March, a year ahead of the Pyeongchang Winter Games.