First batch of champions crowned in Kingston

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KINGSTON, ONTARIO – When Montreal-based skaters Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha won the novice dance title at the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships on Tuesday, it was only one on a string of achievements for them.

Lagha, 15, of Longueuil, Que., has played Carnegie Hall as a pianist already. Lajoie, 14, cracks up audiences at Just For Laughs in Montreal, and she’s already been in a videotron commercial.

The sky has always been the limit for this young, talented team that steamrolled past a group of promising novice dancers in a deep field in the free skate on Tuesday.

Skating to music from the Don Quixote ballet – a challenging piece of music indeed for a novice team – Lajoie and Logha won the free dance with 64.62 points, over Sabrina Bedard and Zoe Duval-Yergeau of Repentigny, Que.

Sum it all up and Lajoie and Lagha won with 93. 80 points, while Bedard and Duval-Yergeau (coached by former national ice dancer Josée Piche) took the silver medal with 90.85 points.

Ellie Fisher of Barrie, Ont., and Parker Brown, of Waubaushene, Ont. won the bronze medal with 88.55 points.

Lajoie and Lagha may be young – they have many years of Junior Grand Prix eligibility ahead of them – but they’ve already been together four years. And ballet is a big part of their lives. They study with a beloved teacher, Eva, twice a week. Once a week, she works with them on the ice. Still, they found it very difficult to translate the ballet onto the ice: the placement of the foot, the extensions, the arms, the expression. Still these intrepid youngsters went for it.

They were Canada’s pre-novice champions last year and had finished second at Skate Canada Challenge, the qualifying event for the nationals. They are slated to do the Canada Games in March.

And Lagha, whose heritage is Algerian? He was born in Canada, but his mother Fella Hammouten, is an accomplished pianist and urged her son to follow suit. Lagha studies with a Georgian-born teacher called Tina Kakabadze once a week and practices at home. All of his work landed him at Carnegie Hall.

Winning the novice title the year after they won pre-novice is an achievement they cherish. “We worked very hard for this,” Lagha said. “It came with work. No work. No results.”

Rachel Pettitt, 15, of Whitehorse, YT., learned the hard way never to take anything for granted. Last year, she didn’t even make it to Skate Canada Challenge, out of her section, much less the Canadian championships. On Tuesday, she became novice women’s champion.

She had hoped for only a medal and then as the night progressed, a silver. But short program leader Justine Brasseur made several errors, and dropped to third place. Pettitt won both the free skate and the overall gold medal, earning 112.87 points. Alicia Pineault of Varennes, Que., took the silver medal with 109.63 points, narrowly ahead of Brasseur with 109.05.

Pettitt’s medal marked the first novice championship for coaches Karen and Jason Mongrain, who have carved out a burgeoning school in Kelowna, B.C. They’ve had champions at lower levels and “lots of fourths” Jason said.

The lesson they have imparted to Pettitt is to fight for every point. And she did, skating to Lara’s Theme from Doctor Zhivago. She’ll move to junior next year.

Brianna Delmaestro, 19, of Port Moody, B.C. and Timothy Lum, 19, of Burnaby, B.C. made it no contest to win the junior dance title, taking the free dance by more than five points to win gold with 148.62. Almost nine points back were silver medalists Lauren Collins and Shane Firus of Minesing, Ont. – a new team this year – with 139.83. The bronze medal belonged to Melinda and Andrew Meng of Montreal, who earned 131.14.

Junior skaters impress at national championships

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KINGSTON, ONTARIO – Selena Zhao hasn’t had a straight and easy path to her first national skating championship in Canada: travel woes, injury, learning curves.

Born in Seattle, Zhao has become a transplanted Canadian this season, and on Wednesday, she finally found her feet, finishing first in the junior women’s short program with 50.21 points, two points more than her closest rival.

Zhao finished only seventh at the Skate Canada Challenge event leading to this competition, but she had been back on ice for only two weeks after injuring her right foot while training an ambitious triple flip – triple toe loop combination.

She had been off for two weeks, after landing “funny” on that combo. It hurt so badly, she couldn’t walk the next day. And when she did get back to work, she couldn’t train normally because everything hurt when she tried that combination again. Leading up to this event, she couldn’t practice the triple-triple version of it.

On Wednesday, she did a triple flip – double toe loop, as pretty as you please, following it with a triple Lutz. When she landed a fine double Axel, she broke into a smile and finished the program that way, skating on air.

As the week unfolds, Zhao says she is “honoured” to have the opportunity to skate for Canada at the nationals. “It’s so cool,” she said. “I’m here and it’s wonderful. This whole thing is so different to me and I’m just happy to be part of it.”

Her mother is in Kingston to watch. “It’s really cool because she was in Ottawa for such a long time,” Zhao said. And Kingston is reminding her of home. “It’s nice to see her getting in touch with her roots,” Zhao said.

Zhao’s goals this year are rather indefinable. “At the very beginning of the season, I didn’t know what to expect,” she said. “You don’t really know what’s possible or not.”

Getting to some Junior Grand Prix events has been a bonus, and Zhao has learned much from them, also considering that she endured horrendous travel issues at both. At her trip to Dresden in Germany, her flight was cancelled because of a Lufthansa strike.

She’s also learned what it’s like to compete with skaters from other countries. “A big thing is confidence,” she said. She arrived in Germany, gawking at the Russian and Japanese girls, about whom she heard so much. Then she suddenly realized that they were all doing the same jumps too. “It was an eye-opener,” she said.

Justine Brasseur has learned a lot this week, too. She and partner Mathieu Ostiguy are the new novice pair champions, winning with a powerful performance and 111.63 points. The previous night, Brasseur had an unusually poor skate in the women’s novice free skate, after leading the short program – and dropped to a bronze medal. Coach Josée Picard said when her first jump in the routine was a little off, Brasseur tensed up. Picard knew that it would be a fight after that, as Brasseur became cautious. And she was.

But in the novice pair event, Brasseur and Ostiguy – skating pairs for the first time this season – delivered fine lifts, throws and jumps. Ostiguy said the twist was the hardest element for him to learn. They did a double twist here and after nationals, they will start training the triple.

“It’s a dream come true,” Ostiguy said. And about skating pairs, after refusing for so many years? “It was a great decision,” said a jubilant Ostiguy.

(Tiny) Olivia and Mackenzie Boys-Eddy won the silver medal with 108.44 points while Lori-Ann Matte and Thierry Ferland won the bronze with 103.60 points.

Growing onto the national stage

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KINGSTON, ONTARIO – He is 13, skates with feel and tackles tough things. Perhaps Gabriel Farand is a star of tomorrow.

He’s in first place after the novice men’s short program at the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships. He started the fireworks among the young men last night, and finished it, too, earning 43.51 points, over Jeff Buttle look-a-like Gabriel St-Jean, who also trains at the same club, the École Etude with Julie Marcotte.

On a night with lots of triple toe loops and triple Salchows and various versions of them, Farand went for a triple Lutz and stumbled out of it, but not before he landed an ambitious triple toe loop – triple toe loop. (He landed a gorgeous triple Lutz on warmup.) There’s a lot more to come in his free skate: seven triples.  Farand was last year’s pre-novice champion.

St-Jean finished less than a point behind with 43.18, safely ahead of 4-foot-10 wunderkind Bruce Waddell, at 40.04, a musical skater with flair, who never misses a musical highlight.

Bruno Marcotte, a former pair skater who is known as a pair coach, has worked with Farand from the time the kid was seven and could do only a single Axel. Farand has picked up both of his tour-de-force moves this season, but not with ease. Over the past year, he’s grown about five inches. Marcotte says he’s grown a head. That intense growth spurt threw off his balance and generally made his life miserable.

Everything came together at the end of the summer.

“You can tell he’s really talented,” Marcotte said. “He has this beautiful air position.”

Farand wasn’t the only young Canadian skater sprouting up like wheat in a warm spring. Nicolas Nadeau, 17, of Boisbriand, Que., finished first in the junior men’s short program with a lofty 62. 10 points, after landing a smart triple Axel. He grew about five inches, too, and because this is his third year at the junior ranks, he’s determined to win this title. This was his first year competing internationally on the Junior Grand Prix circuit. “It taught me to skate on ice without lines,” he said, referring to hockey rink markings at home.

Nadeau currently can do a quad toe loop on two feet.

In second place in Antony Cheng, 17, of Richmond Hill, Ont., who skated with great speed, and launched such an enormous triple Lutz, that he thought – in mid-Lutz – that it was rather more huge than he intended. He hasn’t really tackled full-on training of a triple Axel. That’s a job for post-nationals, he said.

He is in his second year as a junior.

Edrian Paul Celestino, 16, of Dollar-des-Ormaeaux, Que., delivered a Rachmaninoff piano concerto that was a thing of beauty, but three silly mistakes dropped him to third with 58.24 points. He let loose with a gorgeous triple Lutz, landed right on the highlight of the music.

Fourth is Joseph Phan, who is only 13, but who grew a lot, and showed off great speed with a triple toe loop – triple toe loop and a sweet triple Lutz, a good start for his debut in junior. He was last year’s novice champion.

This year, he says he wanted to finish in the top five. He’s currently working on triple Axel and quadruple Salchow in the harness.

Brianna Delmaestro of Port Moody, B.C. and Timothy Lum of Burnaby, B.C. have been together since the spring of 2012, but their match was made in heaven. They are leading junior dance after winning the short dance with 59.21 points.

A new team of Lauren Collins and Shane Firus are in second place with 55.76 points and third are Melinda and Andrew Meng with 53.75.

Paige Lawrence: A Life Refocused

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Did You Know?

Did you know that Paige Lawrence, our Athlete Ambassador in Kingston, always wanted to be a cowgirl? Both her Dad and her brother were bull riders and top-notch rodeo competitors. Paige wants to keep the family tradition alive by taking up the sport of bull riding and bull fighting!

A Life Refocused

Four-time Canadian pair medalist and 2014 Olympian Paige Lawrence, 22, of Kipling, Saskatchewan is about to take on a new role at this week’s Canadian Tire National Skating Championships. Instead of performing and competing on the ice, Paige will be acting as the event’s Athlete Ambassador.

“Some of my responsibilities as Athlete Ambassador will be to do different meet and greets with the general public, to help out with the school groups that come to watch the practices, visit local figure skating clubs, assist with medal presentations, do interviews with the media and generally just be a support figure for the athletes!”

Paige is a natural for the job.

Combined with her bubbly and outgoing spirit, her experience from being at the event nine times means she’s got a lot of history to share. Her optimism and love for figure skating is infectious!

“I want the athletes to feel the positive vibes coming at them from myself and from the fans and the community, and I want everyone involved to enjoy this week to the utmost!”

Since competing last year at Olympics and Worlds with pair partner Rudi Sweigers, her life has gone through some enormous changes, a situation that has sent her into unfamiliar territory.

“To be honest, I hadn’t expected my skating career to be over when the season ended. I was raring to go for this year.  But after several talks between Rudi and myself we began to see we were wanting different things.”

Paige confesses that when the partnership officially ended, she felt like she was in mourning for the loss of her competitive career and the dreams that swirled around it.

“Very suddenly the most important things in my life disappeared and it took a while to learn how to deal with that loss. But I’m an optimist by nature and as hard as it was to have ended my partnership with Rudi, I believe there’s an opportunity to be found in every experience so I tried to focus and find that.”

For Paige, the hardest part about returning to “civilian” life has been redefining herself.

“For so long my identity has revolved around being an elite athlete and now that’s over.  It’s a very strange feeling to go from knowing exactly who you are and having a purpose that you strive towards every single day when you wake up … to questioning ‘who am I now?’ … and to be searching for a new purpose.  Oh yah, and I miss the weekly massages!!”

As she begins the journey towards her next big thing, she’s not sure what she will find.

“Maybe it’s backpacking like I did in Costa Rica or adding to my list of adrenaline pumping activities like bungee jumping, sky-diving and cliff-jumping. Whatever it is, I’m always looking for the next exciting thing to try … and there are so many possibilities!”

Paige isn’t sure how skating will fit into her new life. One thing she’s discovered she enjoys is assisting her coach Patty Hole with up-and-coming skaters. She thinks of it as a way of giving back to someone who has and continues to be such a strong role model and mentor.

Part of her message to young athletes back home and in Kingston this week is also about how to use the skills skating teaches. After her successful competitive career, she recognizes that the lessons learned from skating, through both good times and bad, are lessons that she’ll carry through the rest of her life.

“Skating has helped me become the confident, daring, hard-working, organized, goal-oriented, determined (some may say hard-headed but I think determined sounds nicer!), outgoing, teach-able, and responsible person that I am today.”

And Paige’s life is expanding.

She recently moved to Calgary and returned to university for the winter semester with a goal of eventually achieving a career in Sport Psychology.  She says it’s a brand new goal for her but she’s excited to see what comes from it.  She would also like to get into public and motivational speaking.

“I feel like I still have so much motivation inside of me and I would really love to be able to share my story, especially with other small town kids and athletes. I’d be happy to let them feed off of my energy and hopefully along the way kindle in them that tiny dream that every child carries within themselves.”

Paige’s own dream of becoming a cowgirl began when she was a tiny child riding horseback, chasing and rounding up horses with her Dad.

“I loved being outside whether it was helping my Mom in our garden, or “helping” Dad with his chores. I remember the pails of feed were almost the same size as me so more often than not I just ended up trying to pat all the wild horses while Dad did all the feeding! With my two brothers, I was always very independent and determined, so anything my brothers tried, I had to try too!”

She tried skating at age four when her parents enrolled her into the CanSkate program at their local club. Over the years, as her commitment to training grew along with her achievements, Paige began to realize the impact the sport was having on her life. Today her path in skating may be fuzzy but her love of the sport is as clear as ever.

“I’m sitting here trying to put into words what skating means to me and I realize I have a smile on my face.  That’s what skating means to me … a smile … happiness … a place where I feel more like myself than any other place in the world … an outlet where I made my most passionate dream come true.  Skating is the very center of who I am and how I live my life.”

New Canadian Champions to be Crowned in Kingston

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Pair skaters Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford and ice dancers Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje are flying into the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships this week in Kingston, Ontario on a wing.

Kevin Reynolds is flying in on a prayer.

Everybody knows about the stunning international results delivered by Canada’s top two duos, how they both swept their Grand Prix events and won the Grand Prix Final by large margins and huge personal bests. And they both find themselves at the half-way point of the season as favourites for world championship gold.

Reynolds has been forced to follow a different path, disappearing from sight after withdrawing from both of his Grand Prix events, felled by boot issues and injury.

But wait! According to a conference call on Friday, Reynolds is very much back and alive and zeroing in on finally winning that elusive Canadian title after 10 years at the senior level. He appears to have finally found the magic slipper, and has been training more solidly in the past four or five weeks than he has in the past year and a half. This news happily creates an interesting showdown with the 16-year-old Nam Nguyen, who has gone from strength to strength this season and clearly wants that title abdicated by Patrick Chan, too.

Last season, Reynolds went through nine pairs of boots, trying to find a perfect fit, almost impossible considering his uncommonly narrow heels and wide forefoot. He struggled through four pairs of boots earlier this season, and finally found a custom-fit pair – only to discover that they would break down within a week and a half, under the rigors of a Reynolds’ training session.

The problems worsened after Reynolds finished sixth at the Skate Canada Autumn Classic International in Barrie, Ontario, clearly suffering from a lack of training. And then one day in practice, he fell on a quad and sprained his left ankle, the one he uses as takeoff for the triple Axel and his two quads. “I was simply unable after spraining that ankle to be in any sort of competitive shape for the Grand Prix season,” he said. He had to withdraw from the Grand Prix. It was tough.

He knew he had to take a different tack to push forward after the sprain healed. He decided to try out the best, most expensive stock boot offered by each manufacturer, to see which one fit best. He’s lost track of how many boots he’s tried this season. He puts it at 12. But one of those pairs fit, just well enough.

Reynolds calls it “an amicable solution.” After what he’s been through, it’s enough to give him more confidence than he’s had in more than a year, heading into Kingston.

“In the last month or so, I’ve been able to get some good quality training in,” Reynolds said. “Heading into nationals, I want to be able to capitalize on the opportunities that are present this year, namely that Patrick Chan has decided to opt out this season, which leaves the national title open for the taking.”

Reynolds toughest obstacle right now is a lack of competition leading up to nationals, and in an ideal world, he’d like a little more training time, too. But “I’ve proven that I’ve been able to deal with that in performances that I gave at the world championships and Olympics,” he said. “I know it’s possible to step up to the plate and hopefully take that national title. But I know other people are hungry for it, too.”

Hungry? Others are, too. As huge as their winning score was at the ISU Grand Prix Final in Barcelona last month, Weaver and Poje believe that their routines have improved even more over the past month. “We’ve enhanced a lot of aspects of our program so we’re really looking forward to not only having a great nationals, but getting a lot of feedback to give us a boost into the second half of the season,” Weaver said.

Most of their work on their exquisite free dance to the Four Seasons, is subtle, “a couple of choreography things,’’ finishes, details, expression, interpretation. They’re just starting to feel the rhythm and the feel of the routine. “We have so much room to grow,” Weaver said.

Goals? They’re working at maximizing all of their levels of difficulty at the national championships. “We want to make our programs bullet-proof in terms of the technique,” she added. They have now become accustomed to being the top seed at an event, and they’re ready for the responsibility.

This will be their eighth Canadian championship, and both hope they can finally win their first Canadian title, this after already winning a silver medal at last year’s world championships and gold at the Grand Prix Final.

Duhamel and Radford will go into this national championship with a much more relaxed feeling, especially since they will no longer be pushed by Kirsten Moore-Towers and Dylan Moscovitch. That team has split and are both with new partners, adding another level of intrigue to the event.

Duhamel and Radford, winners of their ISU Grand Prix Final gold by seven points, see this season as a major breakthrough for them. “Last year at the end of the season, we saw a big shift in pair skating in the world: so many teams breaking up, getting new partners, retiring, taking the season off, having injuries, whatever,” Duhamel said. “When we decided to continue skating after Sochi last year, a big part of that was because we saw an opportunity to become the best in the world. And in skating, a lot of it is about timing. You have to wait your turn and you have to be around together as a team and skate your best, at the right time.

“I think that we have a great opportunity this year to set the world on fire,” she said. “And now it’s up to us to seize the opportunity. I would say so far, we’re doing a good job of that.”

TICKETS

Tickets can be purchased online at www.ticketmaster.ca, by phone at 1.855.985.5000 or in person at the Rogers K-Rock Centre box office.

EVENT
The event will feature approximately 250 skaters in the men’s, women’s, pair and ice dance disciplines, competing in three levels: senior, junior and novice.

Athletes qualified for the championships threw their sectional events and then move onto Skate Canada Challenge the national qualifying event, which saw 18 men’s, 18 women, 12 pair teams and 15 ice dance teams move onto the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships.

Athletes will vie for spots on the Skate Canada National Team and the Canadian teams that will compete at the 2015 ISU World Figure Skating Championships, the 2015 ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships and the 2015 ISU World Junior Figure Skating Championships.

Next generation of skaters producing results in Kingston

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Coach Josée Picard calls it Part Two. And she’s talking about tiny Justine Brasseur, who has won both the novice women’s short program and the novice pairs short with her new partner Mathieu Ostiguy at the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships this week.

Part One of Picard’s revived career would be Julianne Séguin and Charlie Bilodeau, the current Junior Grand Prix Final champions. Of course, Picard’s past is the anchor of it all: she coached Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler to win a world pair title and Olympic bronze medal back in the 1990s.

It’s only too fitting that Picard’s latest project is Isabelle Brasseur’s niece, Justine, the daughter of Isabelle’s brother, Dominique.

Picard has been coaching the newest skating Brasseur since she was four. And she started Justine out in pairs when she was only seven – the best way to develop a pair skater.

Brasseur and Ostiguy won the pairs short program on Tuesday with 36.91 points, a narrow lead over Olivia and Mackenzie Boys-Eddy. Justine won the novice women’s short program on Monday with 43.05 points, delivering a triple toe loop – double toe loop and a triple Salchow, along with two spins rated level four.

When Justine was seven, Picard asked Ostiguy, skating at a nearby rink, if he wanted to skate pairs with her. He politely declined, continuing on his singles career. Justine skated with other partners, but they were short-lived duos, all tiny, some with only a 10-pound weight difference, not that Justine was ever very big.

A year and a half ago, Ostiguy came to skate with Picard at her club, and once again, Picard asked him about skating pairs. Ostiguy still did not want to do pairs. But after nationals last year, when Ostiguy did well enough in junior men’s, but not well enough to ever make an international team – there were no triple Axels in the future – Picard told him that when they went home, he would try pairs – and no argument. And then he could decide whether or not he wanted to continue.

He bought in. Picard didn’t think they’d be ready in time for these nationals. But they are showing that they are, with a professional, tidy look on the ice. “What’s good is that they are both good jumpers,” Picard said. “They do all the triples. It’s just a matter of him with lifts, because he had never done lifts before.”

This is Justine’s ninth year of skating. Picard says she’s happy to skate and skate all day at the rink. She’s always smiling. Like Séguin and Brasseur’s aunt, she’s easy going. “I’ve had this one in the oven a long time,” Picard said.

Lori-Ann Matte and Thierry Ferland were only .22 points back in third behind the Boys-Eddy team.

The team that finished ninth of 11 – Katrina Lopez and Kurtis Schreiber – brought back powerful memories of a heady time. They wore the costumes that their coaches, Anabelle Langlois and Cody Hay, wore at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

“It’s pretty cool,” Lopez said afterward. She watched the Olympics at home in Calgary.

Wearing them gave this new pair extra motivation: they are not only representing Alberta, but their coaches, too, Schreiber said.

It was a “super last-minute decision” for Lopez and Schreiber to morph into pair skaters. Schreiber tried out with Lopez last summer, but wasn’t sure he wanted to do it. They finally got together September 10, only four months ago.

Because they started so late, there wasn’t time to whip up all of their costumes. And Langlois says she and Cody are all for saving their students’ money.

Langlois tells Lopez that she looks better in the costume than she did five years ago.

Mary Orr of Brantford, Ont., and Phelan Simpson of Kitchener, Ont. won the junior pair short program easily with 48.04 points and have more than a five-point lead over Hope McLean of Newbury, Ont., and Trennt Michaud of Trenton, Ont., with 42.74. In third place is Keelee Gingrich and Davin Portz of Calgary with 41.86 points.

The new novice men’s champion is 14-year-old Gabriel St. Jean of Grand-Mere, Que., who actually finished third in the free skate with 75.05 points to finish overall with 118.23.

Gabriel Farand, 13, of St-Antoine-sur-Richelieu, Que., who had led after the short program, was fifth in the free and took the silver medal with 117.09. The winner of the free skate was Conrad Orzel, 14, of Woodbridge, Ont., who evoked tumbleweeds in his routine and won the bronze medal with 114.06. His winning score in the free was 80.49.

Novice ice dancers keeping it close going into tomorrow’s free dance

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KINGSTON, ONTARIO – In novice dance Victoria Oliver and George Waddell hope for a podium finish. At first blush, Waddell is a Charlie White lookalike –same hair but taller – and he slips across the ice with his head up, looking quite aristocratic. He and his partner have been together for two years. Waddell took over dancing with Oliver, who had danced with Waddell’s twin brother, Charles, who left dance for other pursuits.

After two pattern dances, the Paso Doble and Westminster Waltz, however, they are in 6th place. It seems that this year, it’s crowded at the top. Never has the competition been so stiff in novice dance.

At the top of the heap is Marjorie Lajoie, 14,  and Zachary Lagha, 15, who have already been skating together four years. They chalked up their biggest scores in the second dance, the Westminster Waltz, but truthfully, Lagha likes the Paso Doble better. “It’s a man’s dance,” he said. They finished in a tie with Gina Cipriano and Bradley Keeping Myra, (representing Nova Scotia) in the Paso.

Last year, they were pre-novice champions. This, their first year at the novice level, they were hoping for a top-five finish. The free dance is still to come on Tuesday.

The team that actually won the Paso Doble are their training mates: Alicia Fabbri, at age 11, the youngest woman in the competition, and her partner, Claudio Pietrantonio, 17.

They have been skating together for only eight months. Because of the difference in their ages, it’s difficult to find the right free dance for them, but they will opt for rock and roll. “It comes really natural to her,” says Mylene Girard, who also works with the team.

Fabbri, looking years beyond her age, and her partner easily won the Paso with 28.80, more than two points better than the second-placed team. Lajoie and Lagha won the Westminster waltz with 31.72, about three points ahead of Sabrina Bedard and Zoe Duval-Yergeau, another Quebec team.

With the scores combined, Lajoie and Lagha are still ahead by 1.62 points over Bedard and Duval-Yergeau. Fabbri and Pietrantonio are in third place, out of second by only three-hundreds of a point.

The top six teams are separated by only 3.55 points.

The coaching team of two of the top three teams is LMK International, headed by veteran coach Julien Lalonde, who toils with technique along with Valerie Allard. Former ice dancer Mylene Girard is part of the team, focusing on choreography.
Lalonde said his aim is to get skaters to the Junior Grand Prix events and beyond. Currently they have teams all the way up to senior.

Lalonde said it took him a year to convince Lagha that he had the perfect partner in his club, and after they had a tryout, Lagha was “hooked” and joined the club. “It was magic from day one,” Lalonde said.

In novice women, Justine Brasseur easily leads with 43.05 points, while Alicia Pineault is second with 40.65 and Rachel Pettitt is third with 37.00.

 

CANADIAN FIGURE SKATING ELITE TRAVEL TO KINGSTON FOR CANADIAN TIRE NATIONAL SKATING CHAMPIONSHIPS

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OTTAWA, ON:  Canada’s top-ranked figure skaters are set to take the ice for the 2015 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships. The event runs from January 19 to January 25, 2015, at the Rogers K-Rock Centre in Kingston, Ontario. The competition will begin with the novice ice dance on Monday, January 19 and the senior events begin on Friday, January 23.

As declared by His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, 2015 marks the Year of Sport in Canada. The Canadian Tire National Skating Championships are one of the first events to help kick off this memorable year.

“Canada is a world leader in creating champion skaters. The investment of our partners, like Canadian Tire in amateur sport, allows us to showcase our world class athletes’ hard work, passion, and commitment to the sport,” said Dan Thompson, Skate Canada CEO. “Canadian Tire and Skate Canada are excited to crown our senior, junior, and novice national champions in Kingston for the first time in the city’s history.”

“From the playground to the podium, the Canadian Tire Corporation understands the power of sport and its ability to inspire greatness,” said Kim Saunders, Associate Vice President, Canadian Tire. “We have celebrated skating for over 90 years and are proud to support the athletes, coaches, families and friends for their hard-work, support and commitment to skating in Canada.”

Canadian Tire, in partnership with Skate Canada, will host a special Family Skate on Saturday, January 17 from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. (ET), at Springer Market Square at Kingston City Hall to celebrate the upcoming championships. Olympians Elvis Stojko and Paige Lawrence will both be in attendance, as well as Mayor Bryan Paterson. The celebration is open to the public and will feature public skating, ticket giveaways and autograph sessions.

Approximately 250 skaters in the men’s, women’s, pair and ice dance disciplines at the senior, junior, and novice levels, will compete for the title of Canadian champion. Athletes will vie for spots on Skate Canada’s National Team and the Canadian teams that will compete at the 2015 ISU World Figure Skating Championships, the 2015 ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships and the 2015 ISU World Junior Figure Skating Championships.

Leading the way in the pair category are Olympic silver medallists (team), two-time world bronze medallists, and most recently, the 2014 ISU Grand Prix Final gold medallists, Meagan Duhamel, 29, Lively, Ontario, and Eric Radford, 29, Balmertown, Ontario.

National team members Kirsten Moore-Towers, 22, St. Catharines, Ontario and Michael Marinaro, 23, Sarnia, Ontario, will be competing at their first Canadian Tire National Skating Championships together.

Newly formed pair team Lubov Ilyushechkina, 23, Moscow, Russia, and Dylan Moscovitch, 30, Toronto, Ontario, will also be making their first Canadian Tire National Skating Championships debut together.

This year’s ISU Junior Grand Prix Final champions and 2014 Canadian junior pair silver medallists Julianne Séguin, 18, Longueuil, Quebec, and Charlie Bilodeau, 21, Trois-Pistoles, Quebec, will compete in the senior pair category for the first time.

World silver medallists, 2014 Olympians, and 2014 ISU Grand Prix Final gold medallists, Kaitlyn Weaver, 25, Waterloo, Ontario, and Andrew Poje, 27, Waterloo, Ontario, lead the Canadian entries in ice dance.

Olympians and 2014 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships bronze medallists Alexandra Paul, 23, Midhurst, Ontario, Mitchell Islam, 24, Barrie, Ontario, and national team members and 2014 ISU Grand Prix finalists, Piper Gilles, 23, Toronto, Ontario, and Paul Poirier, 23, Unionville, Ontario, return to the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships to battle for podium positions.

The men’s discipline will feature 2014 Olympic silver medallist (team) and three-time Canadian silver medallist Kevin Reynolds, 24, Coquitlam, British Colombia, as well as 2014 Olympian and Canadian Tire National Skating Championships bronze medallist Liam Firus, 22, North Vancouver, British Colombia, and 2014 world junior champion and national team member Nam Nguyen, 16, Toronto, Ontario.

In the ladies competition, 2014 Olympian and two-time Canadian silver medallist Gabrielle Daleman, 17, Newmarket, Ontario, and 2013 Canadian bronze medallist Alaine Chartrand, 18, Prescott, Ontario, will headline the field.

For full entries and the event start orders please click here.

Tickets are available and can be purchased online at www.ticketmaster.ca, by phone at 1.855.985.5000 or in person at the Rogers K-Rock Centre.

Media who have not already applied for accreditation are asked to contact Emma Bowie, Communications Manager. She will be the onsite media contact at the event and can be reached at 613.914.2607 or at [email protected].

Skate Canada steps into “Year Of Sport” spotlight at Canadian Tire National Skating Championships

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With 2015 proclaimed as the Year of Sport in Canada, by His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, Skate Canada is proud to celebrate and promote the role that sport plays coast-to-coast-to-coast.

As a leader on the Canadian sports landscape, Skate Canada encourages all Canadians to celebrate sport in their cities and towns by attending or volunteering at a national or sectional competition.   To bring awareness to the benefits of sport and leading a healthy, active lifestyle, Skate Canada will unveil a series of special edition photos featuring national team athletes leading up to the 2015 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships, taking place January 19 – 25 in Kingston, Ont.

The Year of Sport, a proactive Canada-wide initiative with an overarching theme of “Canada: A Leading Sport Nation”, encourages Canadians to participate in and seek the benefits of sport while showcasing key moments in the nation’s sporting history.

Three-time defending Canadian pair champions Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford, also two-time world bronze medallists, 2014 Olympic silver medallist (team) and reigning ISU Grand Prix Final champions, say the social and life skills learned through sport helped boost them up to the top step of the podium.

“Sport has the ability to change and touch people’s lives”, states Duhamel. “Sport is a great passion in Canada.  You can be part of that passion, whether you are a volunteer, a coach or an athlete. I think it is so important for kids to learn the life skills taught through sports, whether it is individual or team sports.”

“I feel sport provides such a great base for a healthy life in all facets,” adds Radford.  “You can stay physically and mentally healthy while making new friends and meeting new people. You learn to deal with success, you learn to deal with failure, and can apply it to every situation you will go through in your life.”

Synchronized skating is another discipline that Canadians enjoy as both a pastime and as a competitive sport. The 2015 ISU World Synchronized Skating Championships, to be staged April 10-11 in Hamilton, Ont., is one of more than 60 international competitions Canada will host in 2015.

Paige Lawrence named Athlete Ambassador for the 2015 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships in Kingston

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OTTAWA, ON: Four-time Canadian pair medallist and 2014 Olympian Paige Lawrence, 22, of Kipling, Saskatchewan will act at the Athlete Ambassador for the 2015 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships in Kingston, Ontario. The event takes place from January 19-25 at the Rogers K-Rock Centre.

“We are delighted to have Paige act as our Athlete Ambassador in Kingston and help us kick-off the first skating event in Canada’s 2015 Year of Sport. This is the most important competition on Canadian skaters’ calendars as they are all striving to represent Canada at the international level. Having Paige join us to represent the competing athletes allows the skaters to stay focused on the ice,” said Dan Thompson, CEO, Skate Canada. “Paige has competed at this event nine times at the junior and senior level and certainly knows what it takes to compete at the national championships and to make it onto the podium.”

As the Athlete Ambassador, Lawrence will be handling speaking engagements, media interviews, making appearances on behalf of the competing athletes, and making time for fans.

“Kingston holds a special place in my heart, as this is where I won my first grand prix medal at the 2010 Skate Canada International.  I am so thrilled to be coming back to Kingston as the Athlete Ambassador for the 2015 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships and to share in the remarkable memories that are sure to be made,” said Lawrence. “I am honoured to represent the amazing athletes who gather here from across the country, as they compete to achieve their individual goals, and I look forward to cheering everyone on with all the enthusiasm in my heart.”

Lawrence and her partner Rudi Swiegers are four-time Canadian bronze medallists (2011, 2012, 2013, 2014). In 2010 they won their first international medal, a bronze at Skate Canada International in Kingston. That same season they also won the bronze medal at the 2011 ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships.

Lawrence and Swiegers qualified to compete for Canada at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi and placed 14th. They then went on to place 12th at the 2014 ISU World Figure Skating Championships in Japan.

After finishing the 2013-2014 season Lawrence and Swiegers went in separate directions.  Lawrence has been keeping herself busy by attending the University of Calgary and hopes to enter the Kinesiology Mind Sciences program in the fall.

TICKETS

Tickets still remain and can be purchased online at www.ticketmaster.ca, by phone at 1.855.985.5000 or in person at the Rogers K-Rock Centre.

EVENT

The event will feature approximately 250 skaters in the men’s, women’s, pair and ice dance disciplines, competing in three levels: senior, junior and novice.

Athletes qualified for the championships threw their sectional events and then move onto Skate Canada Challenge the national qualifying event, which saw 18 men’s, 18 women, 12 pair teams and 15 ice dance teams move onto the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships.

Athletes will vie for spots on the Skate Canada National Team and the Canadian teams that will compete at the 2015 ISU World Figure Skating Championships, the 2015 ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships and the 2015 ISU World Junior Figure Skating Championships.

Canadian Champion Kaetlyn Osmond out for rest of the season

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OTTAWA, ON:  Two-time Canadian figure skating champion and Olympic silver medallist (team) Kaetlyn Osmond will not defend her title at this year’s Canadian Tire National Skating Championships. The 19-year old native of Marystown, Nfld., who represents Edmonton, Alberta’s Ice Palace FSC was off the ice for several weeks earlier this season after fracturing her right fibula in a fall.

Although she was back on the ice, the skater and her coach made the difficult decision to focus on a longer recovery, rather than pushing to compete this winter. It means she will not compete for her third consecutive title at the upcoming 2015 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships in Kingston, Ontario. She also will not be part of the Canadian team at the ISU Four Continents and ISU World Figure Skating Championships later this season.

Osmond appreciates all the support from fans, friends and family. “It was a really hard decision for me not to compete this year. I tried everything to be able to come back, but I just couldn’t get to where I wanted to be for competitions this year.  I’m hoping this break and healing time will set me up for a great season next year.”

 

Kingston to feel like home territory for Alaine Chartrand

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Nobody seemed more surprised than Alaine Chartrand on that November day in Moscow when she unleashed her best game to the public.

There she was in Russia, home of a busy flock of Russian women all trying to outdo the other (the vast majority of them landing triple-triples at the recent Cossack nationals). And this small-framed Canadian in Maple Leaf red won the women’s short program – in only her second senior Grand Prix event.

“So I’m leading after the short at Rostelecom Cup? #what?! #cool”, she tweeted. Her senior Grand Prix debut occurred at Skate Canada International in Kelowna, B.C., where she finished seventh, admittedly more nervous than a tightrope walker in tattered slippers. Obviously, she dealt with the nerves in Moscow.

Perhaps she had a little help. The day she left for Russia, her great grandmother died, hard for someone from such a close-knit family. Chartrand dedicated her performance to her and skated like a champ.

It also didn’t hurt that Chartrand felt relatively comfortable in Moscow, where her coach Leonid Birinberg is from. Birinberg is friendly with the mother of Evgenia Medvedeva, who just won the Junior Grand Prix Final and the bronze medal at the senior level at her national championships. Chartrand knows Medvedeva “a bit.”

In Russia, the scores spilled over Chartrand’s cup, like never before. Although she has always been a mighty little jumper first, Chartrand’s component marks in Russia all climbed above 7.00 for the first time: totalling up a record (for her) 27.68 in the short and 57.72 points in the free.  Whatever she’s been working on this season with choreographer David Wilson and edge artist Gary Beacom, it’s been working.

Heading into the Canadian championships in Kingston, Ont., Chartrand carries with her a personal best short program score of 61.18, and a total score of 172.00 from the Rostelecom Cup. Her record free score of 113.05 comes from her stellar skate at the Four Continents last season, when she was only 15th after the short, and rallied to be fifth in the free, seventh overall.

Did that first-place finish in the short in Russia unsettle her for the long, where she made a few mistakes – but still roared along to take the bronze medal? No, says Chartrand. It did the opposite, taking the pressure off her from having to come from behind, as she has had to do before.

Her goals this year are realistic: finish in the top eight at Skate Canada (check) (and she more than outdid this in Moscow ); get back on the podium at the Canadian skating championships and relive or even perhaps outdo that bronze she earned two years ago; and get to the world championships in Shanghai next March. Last year she finished fifth at nationals.

The Kingston event will almost feel like home since it’s only an hour’s drive from her hometown of Prescott, Ontario. For a skater who spends her days travelling about the province, sometimes in her grandparents’ RV, to train just about everywhere, it’s an easy trip.

For Chartrand, this season has been a big step in many ways: her first year as a senior competitor on the Grand Prix scene, new tasks, new lessons, more attention to every detail. While she held onto her long program to Doctor Zhivago (appropriate for her Moscow performance), Wilson refreshed it and made it new. And she loaded all of her jump combinations into the second half, for good ammunition. She also seriously started to train a triple Axel. She does it every day, she says.

“I always wanted to be the first person to do something,” she said. She was the first Canadian woman to land a triple Lutz – triple toe loop combo at a competition and also the first to do a triple Lutz-half loop – triple Salchow, too. “It would be awesome to be the first Canadian lady to do the triple Axel,” Chartrand said. She’s stood up on some, but not on a completely rotated one yet. She’s excited about it. Needless to say, her heroes are those who push the boundaries of the sport: Midori Ito, Mao Asada, Kevin Reynolds, Yuzuru Hanyu, and Javier Fernandez.

She did attempt a triple Axel at Minto Skate in the summer, but fell. All summer she’s trained it as the first element in her long program.

She tried on two new short programs, but Raul di Blasio’s “La Leyenda del Beso” – the tragic  Legend of the Kiss – won out with its sophisticated air. It has a Spanish gypsy feel, she says.

When Chartrand skates, she now fills the rink more with her presence. “I’ve definitely been working on everything: jumps, spins, stretch, stroking lessons, everything,” she said. And she’s worked with a Canadian icon, Gary Beacom. “Just neat little things to put in my programs,” she said. “Just in general to be unique, because Gary Beacom is very unique.”

She first did a seminar with Beacom, and really enjoyed it. Every few months, Beacom rolls into the Toronto area, sometimes on his motorbike. When he comes, she gets a lesson with him for an hour. “We just really thought he was amazing from the seminar that he did,” she said. “It was great to get some unique things because it seems like everyone looks the same and it’s great if you can do something special.”

The special bits? Entrances and exits from spins, footwork. “He just does things differently,” she said.

Beacom says he thinks Chartrand is very talented. “She picks things up,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to work with her. She’s pretty well-read. An excellent jumper. She spins well, and has some good footwork.” He says he’s been working on her transitions – and some creative ways to get in and out of spins. “This is something that hasn’t been explored in the world of skating,” he said.

Chartrand has done well this season, considering she wasn’t sure she’d even get one Grand Prix event. She’s glad she stayed on her feet at Skate Canada International but really, she did more than that: getting level fours for all of her elements. She’s only just begun this new chapter.