Behind The Blades With Lubov Ilyushechkina

Welcome to my second blog!

The Grand Prix season has started and the second stop is already over. Amazing how quickly the time is passing by. It feels like the summer was just yesterday but you see people wearing their topcoats. Very useful at the rink though!

Well, enough of the small talk – let’s get to the main topic.

It was my third Skate Canada Grand Prix, and second at the Hershey Centre in Mississauga. We are quite familiar with this arena as every year the High Performance Camp is held there in the smaller community rinks. The camp this is also where we film our fun videos and take our team photographs. You will see many of the videos on the Jumbotron at Skate Canada International and the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships.

Actually, it was fun to watch myself do something else rather than skating.

There was a clip played where Meagan was hosting our game “How Well Do You Know Your Partner?”

“Who is more tired after your long program run through?”

I said “The coach!”

These videos give the fans a little insight into our lives beyond our skating. It brings out more of an open view of what our personalities are like off the ice. And they keep you entertained during the flood or breaks in between the events.

I really hope that you enjoyed watching the competition. It is still the beginning of the season, and not all the athletes are at their peak yet. When you come out to compete, you want to bring all your focus, strength, passsion and love of figure skating to the highest level and show a beautiful performance.

But falls and failures still happen. Of cource, it is always disappointing, but the errors show the areas you need to strenghthen. Competing at the highest level requires us to have a certain set of elements. Most of the athletes are usually very capable to perform at a high quality, and some athletes even do more elements than they need in their programs.. It always comes down to delivering, under pressure, at the right moment.

During the competition you always have a chance to see all the skaters and all your skating friends that you don’t see during the training year. I was happy to meet my old teammates, spend some time with them and tell about my life in Canada.

I was glad to compete at home in front of the Canadian fans, seeing a lot of Maple Leafs in the arena. This event was successful for Canada, with our athletes on the podium in all disciplines. Dylan and I got our first Grand Prix medal together – and my first Grand Prix medal for Canada !!!

Last year, we had three trips to Asia, each  flight lasting 12 hours or more. Now we only had a 30-minute car ride from home. It’s a noticeable difference!

We still have one assignment coming up, and my next blog will be after Cup of China!

I hope this colorful autumn will bring you a lot of joy and peace.

Always yours,
Lubov Ilyushechkina