Moore-Towers details struggle with long, trying season after passing on figure skating worlds

Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro's names were glaringly missing from the list of Canadian skaters competing at this week's world championships in Montpellier, France.

It's been no secret that this season — the pair's eighth — was designed to be their last. And after a disappointing Olympics, the expectation was to see Moore-Towers, 29, and Marinaro, 30, back and ready to compete at worlds, which began Monday and wrap up on Sunday.

But now it seems their Olympic skate may have been the last time the veteran pairs team competed together.

"I'm going to be super honest and candid," Moore-Towers said on CBC Sports' That Figure Skating Show. "I think Mike would've liked to go to worlds.

"And I felt tired and like I couldn't fight enough fight that's required to compete your best at a world championship. I felt like our free program at the Olympics, though far from perfect and what we're capable of, I felt free in it. That was the way that I wanted to finish our season in a way that felt like we were in control."

The decision came after a long season that looked difficult from the outside. Turns out, it was even more difficult behind the scenes.

WATCH | Moore-Towers, Marinaro compete at 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing:

The team, which trains in Oakville, Ont., was eager to start the Olympic season but had a hard time picking up speed.

They had eighth-place finishes at two smaller events and saw sixth- and fifth-place finishes on the Grand Prix circuit, not qualifying for what would've been their second Grand Prix final.

But the struggle actually started before the season began. During the summer of 2021, Moore-Towers started getting panic attacks for the first time in her life, stemming from anxiety she had around