SOCHI, RUSSIA—The numeral 1 appears three times from the same judge on the detailed scoring sheet for Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir.

Let me explain what this means.

One judge and only one — from a panel of nine — gave the Canadian ice dancers a plus-one value on three of their nine free dance elements Monday night. This is called the Grade of Execution, a discretionary mark that ranges from minus-3 to plus-3 and is either added or deducted from the base value of each element as determined by a technical panel.

Fathoming the complex scoring regimen for figure skating seems deliberately designed to befuddle casual fans. But, to simplify, the GOE is awarded or taken away depending on how a skater executes moves technically. Artistic points — the component scores — are in a separate category and reflect quality in five areas: skating skills, transitions/linking footwork, performance/execution, choreography/composition and interpretation/timing.

Forget those for now.

There are plenty of ways to fiddle with marks even under the revised scoring code that replaced the old 6.0 system after the judging scandal of the Salt Lake City Games in 2002 .

So, this one judge hung a plus-one on the Canadians for their twizzles, a rotational lift and a diagonal step sequence. Nobody else on the panel stooped that low. This same judge gave a plus-2 GOE to Virtue and Moir on five other elements. Only for a combination spin did he or she award the maximum plus-three.

If you’re wondering why the Canadians — defending Olympic champions — finished silver behind Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White, that’s a good place to start. Those are precious points.

Virtue and Moir scored 56.22 when averaging out the marks, seven of which are randomly selected towards the aggregate scores, highest and lowest marks tossed out. There’s more math computing but we’ll leave it there. Davis and White got not a single 1 for GOE. The Americans defeated their training partners by 1.28 in the overall technical mark.

It’s not known which judge scored the Canadians so ridiculously low, because they’re afforded anonymity. But I can guess. And it’s not really guesswork because the same pattern emerged in every competition over the past two years — half a dozen head-to-heads now in which the Americans have defeated the Canadians — where a certain judge who will not be identified here has sat on the panel.

You want to take a stab at unravelling the mystery of the declining scores for Virtue and Moir over the last two seasons — put your finger here.

Components are judged on a scale of one to 10. Davis and White received two perfect 10s. Virtue and Moir got component scores that dipped down to 9.57 and 9.64.

The Canadians’ score in the free dance was 114.66; the Americans’ was 116.63. Coupled with the short program scores from Sunday night — with a new world record set by Davis and White, though they were out of sync in the crucial Finnstep compulsory sequence — Virtue and Moir finished at 190.99 overall. Davis and White came in at 195.52.

There was simply not a nearly five-point difference in the quality of their respective two skates.

Congratulations are in order for Davis and White, who’ve been skating together since they were 8-year-olds. I do not begrudge these wonderful athletes the first Olympic ice dance gold ever won by the U.S. They are superb skaters with a style all their own and particular strengths. Four years ago in Vancouver, they were silver and the Canadians were golden. In the free dance, their Scheherazade routine was more energetic and, I think, more attractive than the Petit Adagio performed by Virtue and Moir. All the programs were created and choreographed by the teams’ co-coach, Marina Zoueva .

But it’s a devious sport, ice dancing. Scores inflated just a smidge can make all the difference. That’s the reality of this venal “discipline”, which historically is more guilty of score-massaging than singles or pairs. Most people watching don’t know what they’re looking at and can respond only viscerally to what they see.

The skaters know, though. They have come up the ranks inside this system and learn early to accept what they cannot change, which is why they talk incessantly about skating for themselves and taking heart from the performances that just feel special, that become affixed in their memory albums. The rest is beyond their ken. That’s true for all subjectively scored sports but especially so — in its chronic and brazen partiality — in ice dance.

It’s the skaters’ love for their sport that transcends all and restores even a modicum of faith for the rest of us.

“Interestingly, I think that’s part of the allure of ice dance, that balance between athleticism and art,” said Virtue when the question was put: How do you ever accept the innate folly of ice dance judging?

“It’s a tough lesson to learn but the people around us have always advised us to stay true to our product, believe in our material and block out that added noise because ultimately we have to be happy with what we’re producing.

“It’s a battle. You have to be technically proficient but you also have to try to be creative within this limiting little box that we’re put in. That’s a challenge that we’ve embraced, and hopefully that continues to evolve. But it’s not an easy lesson to learn and I think it really just comes down to personal preference and taking care of what you can control.”

White — like Moir a hockey player, and it’s this other shared passion that infuses their bond of friendship, a camaraderie which seems lacking between the women in this unique quartet of skaters who spent every day for nearly a decade training together in Canton, Mich. — was eager to field the same query at the post-event press conference.

“I think you learn it early on. You give what feels like, to your 11-year-old self, the performance of a lifetime and the marks you receive don’t reflect how you felt. But it’s a good lesson not just in skating, but in life.

“It’s helped us as people to learn to overcome obstacles and learn you have to grow and improve if you want to meet your own goals. For all the young kids coming up, it’s not easy ... but that’s what makes it awesome when you can accomplish something.”

To be clear: There was no bitterness from Virtue and Moir.

They could have stepped off the competitive carousel after Vancouver, but chose not to, because both yearn to take their sport to places it’s never been before in terms of innovation and athleticism.

“We’re Olympic silver medallists at the end of the day,” Moir told reporters in the mixed zone after stepping up to the second-highest podium for flower presentation, hopping up and down, joyful. He and Virtue had exchanged fond glances and affectionate hugs, then wrapped themselves in the Canadian flag for victory laps.

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“That’s a pretty good feat. I made it very clear in the media that we were coming here for gold but no one’s going to steal that moment from us. We went out there and we skated our hearts out and left it all on the ice and we’re extremely proud to have another medal for Canada.”

Virtue: “I don’t think anyone close to us will love us any less because we’re bringing home a silver. We’re sorry for Canada it can’t be gold but we’re proud of our performances.”

Double-silver, in fact, because Canada finished second in the inaugural team event last week .

Despite trailing the Americans by nearly three points after the short, Moir and Virtue had certainly not resigned themselves to what most people viewed as inevitable silver Monday night.

“We knew we had a chance,” said Moir. “We really focus when we compete, not about the placement so much, just about us having our moment. We love that program so we wanted to make sure we went out there and did it justice, did our jobs.”

Moir and Virtue detest the constant comparisons to Davis and White; having to delineate their relationship and co-existence with the Americans. “Kurt Browning told me once — you don’t have to defeat your opponent,” said Moir. “You can have different moments. That’s kind of what I held on to this year.”

The keenly competitive atmosphere at their training club has made both teams immeasurably better. And, as Moir reminds, for all its palpable inadequacies, the Code of Points judging system has been a significant corrective.

“Four people sitting at this table have benefitted from the system that came in in 2004,” he told reporters at the press conference. I think it does give more credibility (to our sport). Having said that, there’s obviously another side to it and I feel that you need to constantly be evolving as the sport evolves.

“There’s more that has to go into judging maybe what would be the artistic side. But I don’t feel like that’s a direct (reference) to this competition at all.”

The twosomes will be, as White said, eternally linked in the annals of figure skating, if not necessarily sustaining the working friendship now that their lives will diverge.

“These moments, all the moments, have brought us together and will keep us together forever.”

And you know what? The most spectacular, certainly most emotional skate on Monday night came from neither the Americans nor the Canadians but, rather, the Russian tandem of Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov, with their gorgeous performance to Swan Lake, whatever the marks said. It earned them bronze.

Long afterwards, when the lights had been dimmed at the Iceberg Palace, Moir reappeared. He lay on the ice atop the Olympic rings. Then he jumped cheerfully over the boards.

Remember that this Olympic ice dance championship was likely lost by the Canadians when they were puzzlingly reduced to a Level 3 score for that Finnstep sequence in the short program. They never bridged the gap of two points gone AWOL.

A reporter up in the media tribune jokingly yelled out a score for Moir’s leap over the boards.

He zinged in return: “Maybe I can get my two Finn points back!”