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Here’s Brad Bradford and Tessa Virtue doing figure skating jumps together

The other mayoral hopefuls had better make some Olympian friends ASAP

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Here's Brad Bradford and Tessa Virtue doing figure skating jumps together
Photo by Nick Lachance/Toronto Star via Getty Images

We know Toronto city councillor Brad Bradford intends to run for mayor this fall. What we didn’t know is that he appears to be close friends with one of the most decorated figure skaters in Olympic history, Tessa Virtue.

Related: Could another member of the Ford family become Toronto’s next mayor?

In a clip posted to social media to promote a longer conversation on Bradford’s podcast, the two go for a skate at the Cricket Club. Bradford asks Virtue if they should do side-by-side axels (?!), then they settle on side-by-side waltzes (?!?!), and no, this is not a drill, they actually do it—Bradford was a competitive figure skater in his youth.

“This is good for my daughters to see. There’s anxiety and falling and all that. It’s okay if you fall. That’s how you get better,” says Bradford. Virtue rates his bravery a 10/10.

“Courage is high,” he says. “Execution is a work in progress.”

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We’re still talking about skating, right?

Related: John Tory says mayoral opponents planned to drag his personal life into their campaign

Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.

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