Music: {allcanada} CHAN'S, VIRTUE AND MOIR HIGHLIGHT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

MOSCOW -- Canadian officials have been happily soaking up the compliments from some of the sport's biggest stars ever since Patrick Chan obliterated the field at the world figure championships.

The 20-year-old from Toronto shattered three world records to win gold at an event that was in jeopardy just a month ago, while Canada's Olympic ice dance champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir captured silver.

"The thing that really rang home about Patrick is the amount of alumni and former champions and icons of the sport coming up to us blown away by how he skated," said Mike Slipchuk, Skate Canada's high performance director.

The kind words came from a who's who of stars such as Russian ice dancer Evgeny Platov, a two-time Olympic and four-time world champion, and four-time world men's champion Scott Hamilton.

"When you hear comments like that you realize the impact that program had," Slipchuk added. "They were just so impressed, and I think that's great."

It's just the first step, Chan hopes, toward making his bold statement of skating domination come true. Chan said his aim is to be what Tiger Woods has been to golf or Roger Federer to tennis. He showed he meant business by winning his first world title by more than 21 points, by far the largest margin of victory in the four events here.

Virtue and Moir weren't able to duplicate their Olympic and world victories from last year, finishing a close second behind Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White in their first full competition this season -- a remarkable comeback six months after Virtue underwent surgery in October on both legs.

"Next year you can look forward to a full season of training and that puts them on an even footing coming into worlds next year," said Skate Canada's CEO William Thompson. "I think what they did with the time they had was absolutely remarkable."

Moscow filled in admirably as a last-minute host. The world championships were to be held in Tokyo in March, but the country's devastating earthquake and tsunami forced those plans to be scrapped.

A solemn tribute to Japan set the mood at the opening ceremonies, featuring skaters dressed in black and white and the bright pink of Japanese cherry blossoms. Sunday's gala closing was a more festive affair, with tiny skaters performing to Russian music in bright costumes, some of their cheeks painted in the flag of Russia, some with the Japanese flag.

If Moscow's ability to organize the event in less than a month is any indication, the 2014 Sochi Olympics should run like a well-oiled machine. Athletes and officials said they saw no difference from any other world championship, down the smallest of details such as the souvenir stands. The Moscow event had its own logo which was painted on centre-ice, and on the dozens of flags that hung from the Megasport Arena rafters and on the giant billboards that lined nearby streets.

Just over 9,000 people filed into the 14,500-seat venue -- one of the host arenas for the 2007 world hockey championships -- on the opening day, but that number grew to about 11,000 over the final three days.

Canadian officials headed home pleased with the performances of Chan and the ice dancers, including Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje, who improved on their previous best of 17th-place in 2008 to finish fifth. Vanessa Crone and Paul Poirier were 10th, ensuring Canada has three berths in ice dancing at next year's world championships.

The weak areas were the women's event with the absence of Olympic bronze medallist Joannie Rochette -- Cynthia Phaneuf was the top Canadian in 13th -- and the depth of the men's entries after Chan. Kevin Reynolds was the second-best Canadian male in 20th.

"It's a learning thing and we go back home and push harder for next year," said Slipchuk.

Canada will have two berths in men's singles and pairs, but just one in women's at next year's event in Nice, France.

The big story in pairs was Canada's Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford, who were seventh. Radford persevered through a gruesome bloody and broken nose, suffered when he was hit by an errant elbow from Duhamel in the short program.

While neither Chan, nor Virtue and Moir have committed to being around when the world's best figure skaters return to Russia for the Sochi Olympics, they sounded cautiously optimistic.

When asked what's next, Chan said: "Win another world title, and if I stay healthy and if I still love the sport, hopefully do the same thing at the Olympics. But one thing at a time.

"The way things have worked this week, it's promising for me to go," added the young star, who took in both the Bolshoi ballet and Moscow Circus before heading home.

Chan was a two-time world silver medallist before adding the quad to his cache of jumps this season, propelling him to a new level technically. His skating is the perfect balance between grace and athleticism, what his coach Christy Krall calls "the inside edge and the outside edge."

The 21-year-old Virtue, from London, Ont., and 23-year-old Moir, a native of Ilderton, Ont., said they would hold their heads high after their silver-medal performance. The rest of the field had a five-month head start on them. But the two, whose much-anticipated debut of their sexy new Latin-themed long program was a huge hit, sound keen to reclaim their world crown.

"Part of being the best is repeating, so that was a goal of our's and that maybe will be a goal of ours, is to repeat," Virtue said. "We didn't want it to be just a one-time thing."

London, Ont., will host the 2013 world championships.