Figure Skating Team Event in Sochi begins Thursday

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OTTAWA, ON: Today in Sochi, Russia Canada announced its entries for the men’s and pair short program for the first ever figure skating team event at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games. The event features the top 10 countries, each comprised of one man, one woman, one pair and one ice dance couple. A country is allowed two substitutions between the short and long programs.

Canada will be represented by three-time world champion Patrick Chan, 23, Toronto, Ont., in the men’s short program.

World bronze medalists Meagan Duhamel, 28, Lively, Ont., and Eric Radford, 29, Balmertown, Ont., will skate the pair short program for Canada.

Reigning Olympic ice dance champion Scott Moir, 26, Ilderton, Ont., will serve as Canada’s team captain, and his partner Tessa Virtue 24, London, Ont., is the assistant team captain.

The event begins on Thursday, February 6 with the men’s and pair short program at the Iceberg Skating Palace in Sochi, Russia.

The entries for the ice dance and ladies short programs will be made on February 7. The pair free program skaters will be announced on February 8 and the men’s, women’s, and ice dance free will be announced on February 9.

Canada will enter the competition as the number one ranked team. The other countries that have qualified, in order of points are: Russia, United States, Japan, Italy, France, China, Germany, Ukraine and Britain.

The top five teams from the short programs will advance to the free skates. Team standings will be decided on aggregate placement points for each skater/couple. First place earns 10 points; second place earns nine points down to tenth place earning one point.

For further explanation on the team event the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has produced a short video.

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Olympian Profile: Alexandra Paul & Mitchell Islam

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Finally, their time has come.

Alexandra Paul and Mitchell Islam first twizzled their way into the Canadian consciousness when they showed up at the 2010 Skate Canada International Grand Prix event in Kingston, Ont., as first year seniors – and in only their second season together.

They entranced the crowd with their lyrical routine to “As Time Goes By,” earned their first standing ovation and placed second in the free dance ahead of seasoned British skaters Sinead Kerr, 31, and brother John, 30, ranked fifth in the world. At the time, Paul was 19, Islam, 20.

Vanessa Crone and Paul Poirier had won the event, but Islam and Paul won the technical mark in that free dance, ahead of an athletic Canadian team always known for difficult technique. Even then, Paul and Islam skated with an ease of movement, with effortless freedom and close-together positions.

At the time, Paul and Islam evoked memories of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, who missed that Skate Canada international because Virtue had undergone surgery on her legs. “We love Tessa and Scott,” Islam had said. “We’ve both looked up to them a lot as young athletes, but we definitely want to distinguish ourselves as a new team in Canada in senior.”

Paul and Islam had a year left of junior eligibility, but wanted to forge ahead to senior. Everything seemed “surreal” at this event. They finished fourth overall, after being sixth in the short dance, but they had created a buzz.

But their road to the Sochi Olympics since then has been anything but smooth. Paul pulled muscles in her ribs in training before their next event, Cup of Russia. They couldn’t train leading into the event. They had a fall in the short dance, and then realizing that she could not do the lifts in the free, because of the injury, they withdrew. “It felt like the wind was knocked out of me every time,” she said. But they did mount a comeback to finish third at their first senior nationals.

The next season, everything went awry. “As soon as I got better, something else would happen,” Paul said. They finished only eighth at Skate America, and then when they got to the NHK Trophy, Paul was cut at the back of her thigh in a practice collision with an Italian team and they had to withdraw from the free dance. They got no Grand Prix assignments during the 2012 season and dropped to fourth at nationals.

Their biggest heartbreak came at the 2013 Canadian championships, when they had gathered their forces, moved their training site to Detroit to snap out of their dry spell, and finished in third place after the short dance. A berth for the world championships in London was on the line. But Islam slipped in the free dance, and the dream was gone in an instant. They finished fourth. Only three could go. “It was a wakeup call for us,” Islam said.

“It’s one of those things that feels like rock bottom,” Islam said. It had all been too much: two years of hardship, and then this. For two weeks, their chins were at their boots. “But it’s how you handle things that happen to you like that,” Islam said later. “We had a lot of support from people that gave us confidence, something that we definitely needed after something like that happened.”

They decided they needed to change the way they trained, if they were going to make it to Sochi. “You have to train every day like you mean it,” Paul explained. “You have to go through things, no matter what. You have to recover from mistakes faster. It’s just a no-excuse attitude.”

It wasn’t easy, Islam said. They had to focus on their goals every day, every minute. But it made training a lot easier, he said, because they could take the confidence of being ready, mentally and physically, to competition. “The dividends are quite nice,” Islam said.

Both dancers have histories that suggest success. Islam has skating in his blood. His father, David, was a former ice dancer, now director of ice dancing at the Mariposa School of Skating in Barrie, Ont. His mother, Debbie Islam, was a former national medalist and Olympic judge, who worked the men’s event at the Vancouver Olympics. Shortly after Islam was born, his father carried him onto the ice in his arms. By the time he was two, Islam had skates on his feet.

Paul began skating at age five, but already has a long history of ballet training, quite evident in her beautiful posture and back, and body movement. She and two other sisters enrolled in CanSkate in Barrie, but Alex was the only one who persevered.

She had skated singles up to the novice level, but started dancing with Jason Cheperdak when she was 16, because she was not a fan of attempting triple jumps. Meanwhile, at the same arena, Islam was already making a name for himself with Joanna Lenko, who eventually had to retire because of heart issues.

Both Paul and Islam, of course, had learned the same stroking style from the head coach, who matched them together. “It felt so easy,” she said. Their career took off like a rocket. They outfinished the previous year’s junior champions at a summer competition, got a Junior Grand Prix assignment, and missed a bronze medal by only a point. When they won the Canadian junior championships, Paul thought: “It hit me this could be real.” She had been nervous; she didn’t want to let down Islam, who was a more experienced skater.

They continued on to finish second at the world junior championships. They were so new, they hadn’t established themselves on the junior circuit. And they had been together only five months.

Skate Canada International in Kingston was their “coming out party,” Islam said. It left stars in their eyes. But they have grown in many ways since. And now finally, the Olympics.

Want to read more about the figure skaters who will compete at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi? Pick up Beverley Smith’s new book SKATING TO SOCHI! The book profiles the top 40 athletes/teams with full-colour photos! Order online: Amazon.com, Lulu.com (ebook) or iTunes (ebook).

Beverley Smith

Olympian Profile: Meagan Duhamel & Eric Radford

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Long before Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford started to skate together, they knew each other. They both grew up in small northern communities, she from Lively, Ontario, (population 7,000) and he from Balmertown, Ontario, (population 1,000) which is as far north as you can go by train in northern Ontario.

“Balmertown makes Lively look like New York,” Duhamel would joke. They never dreamed of a partnership. Radford is tall and lean with classical lines, Duhamel tiny and muscular with an athletic style. “If I had ever thought of somebody I could skate with,” she said. “I would never have even thought of skating with Eric because we were so different.”

Both ended up skating in Montreal and when Duhamel’s former partner, Craig Buntin retired, Buntin suggested to them that they try out together. Strangely enough, Duhamel had no intention to continue skating after a disappointing season in which she and Buntin missed a berth to the 2010 Olympics.

“That year was a nightmare all around,” Duhamel said. “I had a stress fracture and a bulging disk in my back for a year and a half. I had nerve damage in my leg. And with the stress of the Olympics and everything, I just didn’t want to live through anything like that again.” She took eight weeks off at the end of the season – and then eventually found herself waking up every morning with no pain. She rediscovered the joy of skating.

Radford, meanwhile, had had a discouraging pair career, and had travelled the world, trying to find his niche, even training for a time with Ingo Steuer. “I feel like I’ve waited a while to get to the level that I felt I could be at,” he said. With Duhamel, he was finally where he wanted to be: a contender on the world stage, not just there to compete. “It’s been a big and exciting change for me,” he said. “It totally changed my entire outlook on skating.”

They had doubts in the beginning. After their first tryout, they were skeptical. Coach Richard Gauthier asked them to give it a week and assured them it would work out. In less than a week, they found that everything was just so easy.

Duhamel found it fun. “When I used to close my eyes and dream about skating, I would envision being able to skate freely, like so light, instead of being so heavy,” she said. “How we skate is how I’ve always dreamed I could do.”

Duhamel and Radford joined forces to get to the Sochi Olympics, but along the way, they’ve become three-time Canadian champions and world bronze medalists, always with a close eye on the points, as indicators of the steps they need to get to the top. Where she was weak, he was strong and vice versa. They filled each other’s holes “and met right in the middle,” Duhamel said. He’s into music, she’s a registered holistic practitioner and a vegan.

Always strong singles skaters, they have powered onto the international scene with some of the toughest tricks in the business. Duhamel was the first to land a throw triple Lutz with an earlier partner and she and Radford adopted it too. It’s still rare. No other skaters attempt side-by-side triple Lutzes, either. That carried them far, and then they started to do acting classes to bring out their relationship on ice.

It hasn’t been clear sailing. Radford found it surreal to defeat four-time world champions Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy of Germany for the first time in the short program at the 2013 world championships, particularly since he had once trained with them and had looked up to them. Then the Canadians narrowly defeated the Germans on the technical mark in the long program. But others had thundered into contention, too, namely Russians Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov, who’s every move is big, spectacular and good for maximum grades of execution.

Duhamel and Radford encountered stiff adversaries at home, too, in Kirsten Moore-Towers and Dylan Moscovitch, who defeated them in the long program at Four Continents last year, and who actually drew a higher technical mark than their fellow Canadians in the long program at the world championships.

Over the past two years, Duhamel and Radford have had to break Canadian-record performances turned in by Moore-Towers and Moscovitch to win their Canadian titles. They came to the table with two outstanding routines this year, the short program to “Tribute” a musical composition created by Radford himself to honour Paul Wirtz, one of his coaches who died some years ago, and their winsome “Alice in Wonderland” routine for the long. They finished both programs with a great deal of emotion – their best efforts of the season. They tend to hit their peak at nationals, not early in the season.

“I think it was the best long we’ve ever skated,” Duhamel said. Those efforts were especially gratifying after a rocky early season. Duhamel and Radford were first after the short at Skate Canada International in Saint John, N.B., then were taken aback to finish third after making several mistakes and getting a standing ovation in the long. Their Grand Prix in France had mistakes too, but they took the silver medal and got to the Grand Prix Final, which didn’t go as they hoped. There, they finished fifth in the short and sixth in the long.

“Being successful at skating is kind of like a puzzle,” Duhamel once said. “If we have one piece missing, we have such a great coaching staff, and great choreography and we have each other. I think all of the pieces will fall into place.”

Want to read more about the figure skaters who will compete at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi? Pick up Beverley Smith’s new book SKATING TO SOCHI! The book profiles the top 40 athletes/teams with full-colour photos! Order online: Amazon.com, Lulu.com (ebook) or iTunes (ebook).

Beverley Smith

Olympian Profile: Paige Lawrence & Rudi Swiegers

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Who could have guessed? Paige Lawrence and Rudi Swiegers grew up in two tiny Saskatchewan towns, 23 kilometres apart, where pair skating is perhaps 25th on the list of things to do behind rodeo.

Actually, Lawrence’s parents own a rodeo production company in Kennedy, Sask. (population 241), home to the Moose Mountain Pro Rodeo, a post office, a bank, a restaurant/bar and a grocery store/gas station. Her father is an ex-professional bull rider and travels all spring and summer to rodeos. On their ranch, they have bucking broncos and bucking bulls. Lawrence’s brother rides bulls. Paige would like to, but coach Patty Hole won’t let her. (“But not for lack of trying,” says Swiegers.)

“It’s on my list, though,” Lawrence said. “It will happen someday.” She has competed in barrel racing, not the usual prerequisite for figure skating. But obviously, she’s fearless, perfect for pair skating.

Their tremendous moxie has driven Lawrence and Swiegers to become perhaps one of the few, if not the first figure skaters from Saskatchewan to make it to an Olympics. They earned the berth when they took the bronze medal at the 2014 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships in Ottawa, seemingly an impossible dream for a couple of prairie kids.

They weren’t matched up in the usual way. Swiegers, born in South Africa, but raised in Kipling, Sask., (population 1,100) had just lost his pair partner and eyed up Lawrence, a tiny skater who, like him, was a leftie. In other words, they both rotate in the direction opposite to which most skaters do (although Swiegers is left handed and Lawrence is right handed, they both naturally rotate to the left). It’s rare to find two lefties, and there they were, in the same little club (they train in Virden, Manitoba).

Hole asked Lawrence to help out Swiegers and before she knew it, she was trying out pairs. Lawrence discovered she liked the feeling of being thrown in the air. They landed a throw triple Salchow during their second week together.

Lawrence started skating when she was four, the daughter of a figure skating mother and a hockey-playing father. There wasn’t much to do in Kennedy during the winter, but there was CanSkate. She landed her first triple Salchow when she was 16.

Swiegers’ mother was a doctor in Saskatoon, before she moved to Kipling, but he started skating late, at age 10. A succession of injuries as a singles skater turned him into a pair skater by age 15. He was 18 when he started to skate with Lawrence during the summer of 2005.

Hole brought on board an old friend, Lyndon Johnston – a world silver pair medalist in 1989 – for some technical expertise. Johnston arrived, expecting to see beginners, but saw a young pair team already doing amazing things. “Paige is probably the toughest girl I know,” Johnston said. “She is fearless when it comes to doing stuff, so now when they want to do more scary tricks, Patty sends them to me. I lose sleep over it.” Lawrence would love to do a throw quad.

They made a splash when they competed at a Skate Canada International in Kingston, Ont., in 2011 with a lift they called “The Missile” or “The Bullet” partly designed by David Pelletier. At one point, Lawrence’s feet are above her head, with her blades near his head and “hopefully he catches me,” she said. The first time they showed it to Hole, she covered her eyes. “That was the reaction we wanted,” Lawrence said.

The team has always shown so much promise, but has been foiled so many times by injury, however. Just before the 2012 Canadian championships, Lawrence suffered a concussion during a practice fall, but a month later, the team won a bronze medal.

They started the Olympic season with high hopes. They were thrilled with new programs choreographed by Lance Vipond (going back to their comfort zone of fun with “Rudy’s Rock” by Bill Haley and the Comets) and the long, designed by Bernard Ford, who gave them the soundtrack from “Oz the Great and Powerful.”

Their long program is not about Oz at all, but they skate to their own story: Lawrence is a mechanical doll, who after a change in melody and some side-by-side double Axels, becomes animated. At first she skates with robotic movement, and that changes when she comes to life.

With these arsenals in hand, Lawrence and Swiegers hoped for big things at the beginning of the year. “Paige and I believe that we are a very strong team and we are very confident with ourselves this year, especially with the new programs,” Swiegers said. “So we’re not going for that third spot. We’re going for national champions and everything is going to come from that.”

However, Lawrence developed an Achilles tendon problem in her left (landing leg) over the summer. By the time she got to training camp in September, her hamstring was pinching her – as her thigh muscles overcompensated for the initial troubles. All season long, the hamstring/groin injury hampered Lawrence. Even at the Canadian championships, she skated with her left thigh heavily taped, although there was less need for it as time went on. They could not do everything they planned. Still, they made the Olympic team.

They are known as a fun-loving team that brightens a room with their presence. At the 2011 Four Continents championships, Swiegers saved the day for U.S. team Amanda Evora and Mark Ladwig, after Ladwig broke the heel of a skate and had only three minutes to repair equipment. Swiegers, who had already skated, handed Ladwig his own boot and Ladwig was able to continue.

Later, U.S. Figure Skating flew Swiegers and his mother to Chicago to a Governing Council Meeting, where Ladwig presented the Canadian Samaritan with the U.S. Sportsmanship Award. Swiegers met the “higher ups,” as he put it. They both have come far from small-town Saskatchewan.

Want to read more about the figure skaters who will compete at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi? Pick up Beverley Smith’s new book SKATING TO SOCHI! The book profiles the top 40 athletes/teams with full-colour photos! Order online: Amazon.com, Lulu.com (ebook) or iTunes (ebook).

Beverley Smith

Olympian Profile: Liam Firus

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Liam Firus knew it was going to be a dogfight, the showdown for the men’s Olympic spot at the national championships. “But that’s when I skate my best,” says the 21-year-old from North Vancouver.

The young man with the quiet grace has had a shorter season than most as he recovered from a groin injury that had bothered him the previous season. For weeks, he suffered painful injections, did physiotherapy, and centred his life around rehabilitation. He didn’t start jumping again until July. He didn’t start introducing triples back into his training until the middle of August, and it wasn’t until the beginning of September that he started doing full programs. He had only five months to go to the Olympic Games.

He was taken aback when he finished second in the short program at the national championships – ahead of Kevin Reynolds – even though he fell on a triple Axel. Firus held his hands on his head in anguish when he left the ice.

Could he possibly see himself winning the bronze medal when he started his difficult season? Well, yes, Firus said. “I thought, ‘You know what? You’re going to be on the Olympic team,’” Firus said not so long ago. “It’s going to be tough. Nothing is going to be easy. This is my goal. I told myself I was going to be here. And I was.”

He’s not the type to be boastful. He’s mannered, quietly confident, respectful, shows up to train every day. He started out as a hockey-player-turned skater, learning the ropes from Lorna Bauer in Vancouver. And last summer, to position himself for that Olympic spot, Firus left to train with Christy Krall in Colorado Springs.

“There are no hard feelings,” he said. “She [Lorna] is still part of my team. But Christy runs things now. If I ever need advice, I go to Lorna. But I am now officially at Colorado Springs.”

“It’s a change,” he added. “I miss my old life, my social life. I don’t really have a social life any more, although one of my best friends in Colorado is Max Aaron. We are good buds.”

Alas, Aaron didn’t make the U.S. Olympic team, as Firus triumphed in Canada. The vibes were working, just not quite enough. Just before the long program, Firus called Aaron, who was in Boston at the U.S. championships. “He told me to go out there and be amazing,” Firus said. “He’s a jumper. He knows how to be amazing to the crowd. He’s fun to watch. He’s what people want to see. He brings excitement to the sport.”

Firus is grateful to have an array of top skaters to train with: Jason Brown, Joshua Farris, Agnes Zawadski, Brandon Mroz. “It’s nice to see that when you have an off day, everyone else has them too. Even the best ones,” Firus said.

But he hasn’t forgotten home. He was born and raised in Vancouver. He’s been happy to live there. “I have the best friends there, and I truly feel that they’ve kept me grounded,” Firus said. “They’ve given me support. In high school, being a male figure skater, it isn’t the easiest thing, but they were unbelievable.”

One of Firus’ best friends, Luke, was also a track competitor in elementary school. They’d run neck in neck in 100, 400, 800 metre events. “We had a rivalry, but we were best friends,” Firus said. “He made me the competitor that I am. I owe that to him.”

“It was the hardest thing to leave home, because they made me who I am,” Firus said. “But now I’m so focused on skating.”

His father, Trevor, is an accountant. His mother, Lois Sullivan, is a real estate agent. Firus’s grandfather was the figure skating fan. “My family supports me so much,” Firus said. “Mom has really made this possible for me. I owe it all to my mom.”

When it came time to make a decision to leave Vancouver, Firus’s mother let him leave to see what he could be. “She just said: ‘You’ve got to get there. Just do it. You have all our support.’” Firus said.  Coach Lorna – who he regards as a second mother – told him “You do what you need to do to get to the Olympics.”

“And that’s exactly what I did,” Firus said. “It’s been an awesome year.”

Not surprisingly, Firus lists as two of his idols the consummate artistic skater, Stephane Lambiel – and his younger brother, Shane Firus.  “I’m not joking,” Firus said. Shane was the bronze medalist in junior dance last season, but is currently looking for a new partner.

“I think Shane is absolutely amazing,” Firus said. “I was on the ice with him when I went back to Vancouver after Skate Canada Challenge and he was doing just simple stroking. He’s been off the ice for a while, but he was there…and I was in awe. He’s absolutely amazing.”

“I look up to him. It’s his edges, his presence, even off the ice. Shane really makes me grounded. He makes me laugh. On the way to the long program [in Ottawa], he picked me up and he drove here. We are very close. He’s one of my best friends. He’s truly amazing on and off the ice.”

Another Firus? He’ll bear watching. Never underestimate them.

Want to read more about the figure skaters who will compete at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi? Pick up Beverley Smith’s new book SKATING TO SOCHI! The book profiles the top 40 athletes/teams with full-colour photos! Order online: Amazon.com, Lulu.com (ebook) or iTunes (ebook).

Beverley Smith

Les Supremes earn synchro skating bronze at French Cup

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ROUEN, France – Les Supremes from St-Leonard, Que., gained a spot in its long program to win the bronze medal Saturday in junior competition at the 10-country French Cup synchronized skating event.

Finland teams were 1-2 with Fintastic first at 171.68 and Mystique second at 167.95.  The Supremes followed at 164.60.    The Supremes team members were Rebecca Allaire, Kelly Arenas, Patricia Alexandra Batista Ruivo, Alexandra Bernardo, Emma Maria Corona, Alessandra Criscuolo, Marina Dina Dentico, Sara Gilbert, Kathleen Grandchamp, Nadia Lemay, Dana Malowany, Christina Marie Margiotta, Alexia Nadal-Plante, Alessia Polietta, Stefa Saddi, Emily Santella, Adriana Rose Spatan, Sofya Squalli, Ashley Stendel and Tuyet Mai Stephanie Vu.

Les Suprêmes junior placed eighth at this event last season, seventh in 2012, and fourth in 2011. The 2013 Canadian junior silver medallists are coached by Marilyn Langlois and Amélie Brochu.

Leaside Synergy from Toronto took ninth spot.  Team members were Alessia Chiovitti, Courtney Hardy, Emily Bird, Haleigh Cowan, Hannah Corbeil, Hannah Coyle-Asbil, Ewan Hilary, Jenna Child, Julia Chiovitti, Lauren Hutchison, Madisson Biel, Mara Spence, Melissa McCrae, Melissa Pulenzas, Rachel Hennick, Rachel Moore, Rebecca Francis, Rebecca Moore and Rebecca Solomon.

This was the first international assignment for Leaside Synergy, coached by Stephanie Klein. Leaside Synergy junior placed fourth at the 2013 Skate Canada Synchronized Skating Championships.

In senior competition it was a Finnish medal sweep.  The Supremes took sixth place with Élodie Marie Achéron, Audrey Bédard, Karyane Bélisle, Lydia Bergeron, Jessica Bernardo, Lou Ann Bezeau Tremblay, Josyane Cholette, Sara Irma Corona, Alexandra DelVecchio,  Laurie Désilets, Maria-Victoria Langon, Sarah Leblond, Sophie-Anne Lemay, Clémence Léa Marduel, Agathe Sigrid Merlier, An-Kim Nguyen, Chloé Perrin, Geneviève Rougeau, Marina Rousseau and Claudia Sforzin.

Les Suprêmes placed fifth at this event last season, fourth in 2012, and won silver in 2011. Representing Québec, they placed sixth at the 2013 ISU World Synchronized Skating Championships. Les Suprêmes are coached by Marilyn Langlois, assisted by Pascal Denis and Amélie Brochu.

Full results : http://www.frenchcup.fr/en/event-info/results/2014/

Olympian Profile: Kevin Reynolds

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Kevin Reynolds has seen the best of times and the worst of times in less than a year.

The skater from Coquitlam, B.C., was the toast of the country last season when he went from strength to strength: He landed five quads at the national championships; he defeated Patrick Chan on the technical mark in the free skate by 12.64 points; his long program score of 175.94 blasted his previous best by 30 points and his overall score of 261.40 was 40 points better than he had ever scored; he won the Four Continents Figure Skating Championship over skaters like popular world champion Daisuke Takahashi; he finished third in the short program at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships and fifth overall, tidily meeting a goal that many thought was a bit ambitious at the beginning of the season.

Reynolds had finally come into his own. It was a breakthrough season. It was the perfect time to have one of those, with the Sochi Olympics in the offing. It was a huge confidence builder, a momentum builder.

This season hasn’t been so easy. Reynolds hasn’t been able to capitalize on the momentum he created last year. He is going to have to take every scrap of muscle memory and moxie with him to the Olympics. Actually, he’s just relieved he qualified, after the season he’s had. “The last two weeks have been nerve-wracking,” he said.

Reynolds sailed through last season as soon as he got a new pair of boots, after he had finished sixth at NHK Trophy in Japan. They fit him better than most ever had. After all, he has a very narrow heel. He’s not easy to fit. These were like a glove. Reynolds was in boot heaven.

He thought his next pair of boots would be the same. They were not. Throughout the season, as he had to withdraw from both of his Grand Prix events with boot problems, Reynolds tried to find the answer in nine different pairs of boots.  It was a frightening turn of events. His programs were terrific. He was set to improve his performance skills with Lori Nichol doing his long program for the first time. But the stupid boots threatened to destroy his Olympic dream. Remember? Reynolds missed the Vancouver Olympics in his home city by a hair. He’s 23 years old now and it’s his time.

Like many young Canadian boys, Reynolds started skating through hockey. His father, Daniel, was a hockey fan who watched the Vancouver Canucks almost religiously. But when Reynolds started in CanSkate, he veered over to figure skating, not willingly at first.

“I used to hate the figure skates,” he said “After wearing the hockey skates, I was tripping on my toe pick. I absolutely didn’t like the figure skates. But I started jumping soon after that, and I just loved the feeling of being able to fly up into the air. And I loved the feeling of spinning. That really shaped my love of the sport.”

He has a younger brother who was never interested in figure skating and is more of an academic type, probably with a future in biology or the sciences. Their mother, Cindy, is a cytotechnologist, who analyzes slides of human cells, looking for abnormalities such as cancerous cells or infectious disease cells.

Kevin is the athlete, whose schooling these days is rather on hold because of the Olympics. But he has been studying languages, particularly Japanese. You see, Japanese fans love Reynolds, and he quite likes them back. His stunning Four Continents victory in 2013 took place in Osaka, Japan and he used a routine choreographed by a Japanese man who does not speak much English. It worked.

This year, turning to Lori Nichol, Reynolds was nervous, knowing she had worked with some of his most influential skaters, such as Michelle Kwan. “She’s really gotten me to see a different side to the performance aspect of it,” said Reynolds, who knows that he must boost his program component mark to get to the top.

Shae-Lynn Bourne, his artistic mentor, choreographed his expressive short program to rock music. Nichol’s long program to “Excelsius” calls for a different kind of energy, with long sweeping movement. Reynolds found it difficult from the start. But he mastered last year’s long program by the end of the season. He finds “Excelsius” hard to master, but fulfilling.

Still, all of those good things have been underscored by Reynolds’ boot difficulties. He skated at the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships with one old boot and one new boot. (Elladj Baldé did the same.) His training hadn’t been going well at all leading up to the event. He wasn’t nervous about the event, rather more anxious to finally compete and test himself under pressure. And he was tested, when his music stopped seconds into his short program.

The week turned into an exercise in managing, getting his feet under him, and getting himself ready physically and psychologically for the Olympics at the Canadian championships – his first and only competition before the Games.

Reynolds knew he wouldn’t be perfect. “It was a fight the whole way through,” he said after the long. “Nothing was comfortable out there. I’m just glad I was able to get this competition under my belt. I definitely needed this going into Sochi.”

The pressure came off his shoulders somewhat, realizing that he had helped win Canadian men three berths for Sochi – and he would be doing well to finish third, he thought. Still, it all worked out. He took the silver medal.

In the next few weeks, Reynolds will suck it all up. He’ll ignore his boot problems and carry on. He’s had to do this before. Just before his spectacular performance at the world championships in London, Ontario Reynolds suffered from a painful cyst in his leg. This time, it seems worse. He’s most grateful to the members of his team for getting him to Sochi. Now he’ll have to take care of the rest.

Want to read more about the figure skaters who will compete at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi? Pick up Beverley Smith’s new book SKATING TO SOCHI! The book profiles the top 40 athletes/teams with full-colour photos! Order online: Amazon.com, Lulu.com (ebook) or iTunes (ebook).

Beverley Smith

Charles Dion earns personal bests in Ottawa pulling on the strength of inspirational sister

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Charles Dion is a winner. No, he didn’t make it onto the Olympic team at the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships in Ottawa this year. He didn’t win a medal. But he won in other ways. The national championship was his Olympics.

Dion, 22, of Candiac, Que., didn’t even qualify for the Canadian championships last year. Didn’t get past Skate Canada Challenge. But his own challenges have come this season, and he’s met them, every one. All with grace and quiet chutzpah.

Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Dion was adopted at six months of age, by Quebeckers Denis Dion, and Jacythne Cote, now a chief executive with Rio Tinto Alcan. Charles was one of about 20 orphans brought to Canada by a nun seeking better lives for homeless Taiwanese children. The Dion’s chose little Charles.

The Dion’s didn’t stop there. They also went to China to adopt a girl, Laurie, now 20. And they adopted a second girl, Gabrielle, now 19, also born in Taiwan. Finally, they were a family.

Charles began skating when he was three years old, and Laurie followed. Gabrielle drifted into equestrian sport. Denis trundled them to all of their pursuits. “It’s all because of him that we’re where we wanted to be in sports, because he was there for us,” Charles said.

After Charles failed to make it to the Canadian championships last year (he was 14th at Skate Canada Challenge), he decided to make a big change, because his time in the sport was running out. He decided to skate with Annie Barabé, and improve his consistency and component marks.

However, a major life wrinkle interrupted his plan. Three months ago, Laurie developed paralysis on her left side. After many tests, doctors found a big mass in her brain, a tumour. After surgery to remove it, they found it cancerous. The diagnosis threw the family into turmoil.

Laurie had surgery just before Charles was to compete in sectionals, but at least he felt little pressure about advancing. The top eight would advance to Skate Canada Challenge, and only 10 competed. The hardest part was the stress, thinking about his sister. He did a good short program. The long program was harder: It was to the U2 song: “With or Without You.”

It had been a coincidence that Charles was skating to this music, chosen before his sister fell ill. But the words played on his mind.

See the stone set in your eyes

See the thorn twist in your side

I wait for you.

Sleight of hand and twist of fate

On a bed of nails she makes me wait

And I wait without you

With or without you

I can’t live

With or without you.

While Charles had been training for this event, his parents had been giving him almost hourly updates on Laurie’s condition. By the time she had surgery, his parents were exhausted, and the day of the operation, Charles spent the night with her. In fact, Charles spent two days with her.

He made it to Skate Canada Challenge, finished seventh and set a personal best mark. “I was really proud of myself,” he said. “It gave me confidence to boost me through the holidays, through the training, every day to the national.”

His sister is better now, and doing well, Charles said. She’s currently on a break from her exhausting chemo and radiotherapy and doing well. His performance at the Canadians in Ottawa was for her.

And what a performance it was. He’d been working with a sports psychologist, who advised him that a win is not about the points you get, but how you feel after the program. Charles did a clean short program. When he got off the ice, he told Barabé: “I don’t know how many points I’m going to have, but I’m really proud and I enjoyed myself on the ice.” During the second part of his footwork, the crowd had begun to clap, shout and scream, perhaps a little noise from his family in the Quebec section of the rink. He finished ninth with a personal best. The long program was different.

Peter O’Brien had skated directly before him – and because he was skating in his own section with a lot of crowd support, there was a wild cheering. O’Brien had skated well and got 130 points. Charles decided to drink in the energy that O’Brien had created.

It worked. He landed a triple flip – triple toe loop combination and got a string of plus 2s for execution. In fact, by the time he had finished, he’d earned 127.00 points, for 195.74 total points, good for 10th overall.

Charles had exceeded his personal best by 15-20 points. His total was 40 points higher than his score at Skate Canada Challenge last year, when he failed to qualify for Canadians. “I couldn’t imagine those points that I had,” he said. “Even now I’m still on a high. I did two personal bests.”

Charles has a plan to try to get into university this fall, with hopes of studying international business and following in his mother’s footsteps. He hopes the university he attends will have a sports school. He doesn’t feel finished yet. “I still love to train,” he said. “I know I’m a little old compared to some guys that are coming up. But I’m still progressing and it’s encouraging me to continue.” He would like to master a triple Axel and a quad. He’ll work on those jumps for the next couple of months, then make a decision.

And oh yes, Charles is the one who skates with glasses. They’ve fallen off only twice, during spins. “I don’t see them anymore,” he said. “I don’t feel them. I know when I pick them up at the optometrist, I am sure they are going to stay on my ear.” They do not fall, even when he’s trying quads.

Laurie’s battle with cancer has changed lives around her. Charles said it has made his family stronger. “Things that we wouldn’t have done or said, now we do,” he said. It’s the same with his friends, who are like family, too.

“I see her as a fighter and a warrior,” Charles said of his sister.

Beverley Smith

Olympian Profile: Kaetlyn Osmond

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She’s just beginning, this 18-year-old Kaetlyn Osmond, the woman with uncommon flair, and now a two-time Canadian champion on her way to the Sochi Olympics.

She is blossoming, despite a injury-filled season. It was no accident that Osmond decided to have a long program created for her this year in which she would depict Cleopatra, a strong woman in the scheme of things. Cleopatra was the first female pharaoh of Egypt at the turn of time, refusing co-rulership with a man, as was the custom. So powerful was she, and so stunning her charms, that she was a few nasty battles away from becoming the ruler of the western world.

Cleopatra is the perfect metaphor for Osmond’s aims: rising to power. “It’s the exact same thing I wanted to do this year,” she said. “It’s my own rise to the top of the podium in the Olympics. We were aiming to weave the story of Cleopatra into my own life. And that’s exactly what I want to have.”

Osmond has come far and travelled far to get where she is now. She started skating at the only rink in Marystown, Newfoundland as a two-year-old tagalong behind sister Natasha, before the family moved to Montreal, then Sherwood Park, Alberta, near Edmonton. With everything she has learned along the way, Osmond delivered the most impressive debut at a world championship by a Canadian woman in decades: fourth in the short program, eighth overall.

She’s the ultimate competitor, relishing the sounds of battle, filling the rink with her presence. Perhaps she won’t be rising to the top of the podium at thisOlympics. She’s realistic and so is her coach, Ravi Walia. She’s relatively new to the international scene and its demands, landing on it only two years ago. Some of her competitors have been doing this for 10 years (Carolina Kostner.) Some have been doing it less (Julia Lipnitskaia). This season, Osmond’s path to the podium has been hampered by one injury after another. The problems have tempered her plans, if not her spirit.

Last year, she landed a triple-triple combination in the short program to good effect. This year, she planned to carry it over to the long, but after she developed a stress reaction in a left foot during the summer, and then a hamstring tear that caused her to pull out of Skate Canada International in Saint John, New Brunswick last October, Walia had to rewrite the path to Sochi.

The second injury was worse than the first. With her stress reaction, she could still skate on the foot, although she couldn’t do all of the jumps. The hamstring injury completely hobbled Osmond. “When I got back on the ice, I could barely do my crosscuts,” she said. “I had to work so many edges and so many stroking exercises before I could even think about jumping.”

Usually, she would add the spins before the jumps, but on the second day back, she was about to push into a spin when she felt excruciating pain. She lost two and a half weeks to recovery, and then spent another two weeks just doing stroking exercises.

Finally, after a good effort in the long program at Skate Canada Challenge, when she had to come from fifth in the short, Osmond learned another lesson: to forget about the short program, no matter how well or poorly you do in it. Now she’s skating stronger than ever.

All of the problems had a silver lining: Osmond was forced to learn perfect technique. She felt pain if she used the wrong technique. She also learned how to overcome adversity with confidence and “knowing no matter what gets thrown at me, whether it’s good or bad, I can still stay with a positive attitude and stay focused and calm and able to skate.”

Her goals in Sochi are to continue with the same list of jumps she had last season, and with that, finish within the top eight. Osmond won’t try more difficult triple-triples because she says she does not have enough competition experience to throw them in for such a major event like the Olympics – her first international competition this season.

She admits that she’s probably ready to do more difficult triple-triples (she had been working on triple flip – triple toe loop). “They are super easy for me,” she said. She aims to skate two clean programs and show that she can come back from anything and be ready. If she didn’t get hurt, she’d still follow the same path, she said. “The only thing I’m aiming for is to do better than I did last year,” she said.

That’s realistic, Walia said. “She wants to skate two clean programs perfectly and that could put her higher than eighth,” he said. “It really depends on how the other skaters skate, also.” He knows Osmond doesn’t have the most difficult content in her program. If her international peers skate their best, they’ll have great results. Her one effort at a triple-triple in a long program during a summer competition didn’t go well. Her best bet for Sochi is to rely on what she has done many times, with combinations she can rely on.

“Last year, she had just learned these things so quickly and so now she has an extra year with them and that’s why she’s consistent in practice and why she’s so confident,” Walia said. Her tribulations have been a blessing in disguise, Osmond says. She was shocked with her effort at the Canadian Tire National Skating Championship. At the Olympics, anything can happen.

Want to read more about the figure skaters who will compete at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi? Pick up Beverley Smith’s new book SKATING TO SOCHI! The book profiles the top 40 athletes/teams with full-colour photos! Order online: Amazon.com, Lulu.com (ebook) or iTunes (ebook).

Beverley Smith

Olympian Profile: Gabrielle Daleman

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It seemed that there was no way that Gabrielle ‘Gabby’ Daleman was going to take off that Olympic team jacket she earned for winning the silver medal at the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships.

In the days following the Canadian Olympic Committee presentation, Daleman stuck around the championships, supporting her brother, Zachary Daleman, who finished fifth in the novice men’s event. Everywhere Daleman went, she wore that red and black jacket.

It was the best birthday present she could imagine. Daleman won her way to the Olympics when she was 15, then she turned 16 the following Monday, January 13. Strangely enough, Daleman has the same birthdate as her idol, Joanne Rochette, who won a bronze medal at the most recent Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

“Words can’t describe how excited I’d be,” Daleman said before the team announcement. “The Olympics comes along once every four years and knowing that I’ll be the youngest there [on the Canadian team] will just make my day.”

The petite skater from Newmarket, Ontario, wasn’t initially impressed with the idea of skating. Her mother, Rhonda Raby, was a skating fan who enrolled Daleman in skating when she was four years old. “I was one of those kids that did not want to get on the ice at first,” she said. “I would cry. I would beg not to go on the ice. But then after weeks of crying, my mom just said: ‘Just go on the ice.’ And then they couldn’t get me off.”

When Daleman was eight years old, she saw Rochette on television and began to jump around the living room. “And that’s when I knew I wanted to be a competitive skater and be like her,” Daleman said.

Daleman swash-buckled her way to the Olympic berth, the dream having been born when she finished second at the Canadian championships last year in only her first year as a senior. In her mind, that meant she had to squish three years of senior skating into one to make that team. She turned on the burners, inserting two triple-triples into her repertoire, including the formidable triple Lutz – triple toe loop, a combo that many of the women at the top of the international scale do. “I knew I needed the stuff to get it done,” she said.

Her final score of 182.47 visibly shocked her; her previous best, set earlier in the season, was 174. “I was not expecting that score at all,” she said. “I was not even focused on it from the beginning. I was more focused on what I needed to do to get the job done.” She was a little nervous going out onto the ice, knowing what was at stake, but she said she calmed herself down by telling herself she knew how to do it and she had to trust her training. She fought for every point.

Her favourite part of skating is jumping, but she also put a lot of work into increasing her program components mark, turning to Lori Nichol to design both programs for the first time. Nichol had choreographed her long program last year. “My programs are a lot of fun to train,” she said. “Lori is so much fun. She pushes me really hard.”

One of her coaches, Andrei Berezintsev, said Daleman has improved everything this season. “I think that fact that she could potentially be one of the Olympics, she’s pushing her limits. “

Berezintsev has worked with Daleman for five years. When he first saw her, she had a single Axel and a cheated double Salchow. “But what I liked, she was always the show woman,” he said. “On the ice, you can see her all the time.”

It’s been an intense season. Asked what she does off the ice, away from skating, Daleman’s first thought is: “If I’m not skating, normally I go to physio.” Laughter breaks out, then she says: “I’m an athlete you know.” She does hang out with a group of about six friends, most of who were at the Canadian championships. “But mostly I stay at home and try to relax and stretch,” she said. “My life is pretty much skating. And I’m actually okay with it because I know it pays off in the end and it’s what I love doing.”

Daleman’s career is only beginning. Two-time Canadian champion Kaetlyn Osmond, who defeated a strong field of women in her first Grand Prix, Skate Canada, one and a half years ago, has pushed Daleman, too. “What Kaetlyn did last year was really big,” Daleman said. “I know that she’s a great competitor. She’s a great skater and nice friend and a wonderful girl and I love competing against her.”

Friendship aside, Daleman figures she doesn’t always need to play the bridesmaid. “One day, you want to beat her,” she said. “So you just keep pushing, pushing and we all try to get to the top.”

She’s learned many lessons in a short time: don’t focus on marks, but the job at hand; trust the training; don’t be focused to a fault; don’t get upset if something doesn’t work; don’t overdo an injury – know your limits.

And as driven as she is, Daleman already knows that perfection doesn’t exist. But she’s driven.  And don’t forget, the Olympics will be Daleman’s first major senior international competition. Internationally this season, she’s been competing on the Junior Grand Prix circuit.

Want to read more about the figure skaters who will compete at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi? Pick up Beverley Smith’s new book SKATING TO SOCHI! The book profiles the top 40 athletes/teams with full-colour photos! Order online: Amazon.com, Lulu.com (ebook) or iTunes (ebook).

Beverley Smith

Canadian teams en route to 2014 French Cup synchronized skating competition

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OTTAWA, ON: Three Canadian synchronized skating teams will travel to Rouen, France, to compete at the 2014 French Cup. The international synchronized skating competition takes place from January 31 – February 1, 2014, and features 39 teams from 10 countries, in senior, junior, and novice. Canada will have entries in the senior and junior categories.

Les Suprêmes, the 2013 Canadian silver medallists, will be the Canadian entry in the senior category. Les Suprêmes placed fifth at this event last season, fourth in 2012, and won silver in 2011. Representing Québec, they placed sixth at the 2013 ISU World Synchronized Skating Championships. Les Suprêmes are coached by Marilyn Langlois, assisted by Pascal Denis and Amélie Brochu.

Les Suprêmes junior, also from Québec, are the first of two teams representing Canada in the junior category. Les Suprêmes junior placed eighth at this event last season, seventh in 2012, and fourth in 2011. The 2013 Canadian junior silver medallists are coached by Marilyn Langlois and Amélie Brochu.

Canada’s second entry in the junior division is Leaside Synergy junior, representing Central Ontario. This will be their first international assignment. Coached by Stephanie Klein, Leaside Synergy junior placed fourth at the 2013 Skate Canada Synchronized Skating Championships.

Jennifer Betts of Bragg Creek, Alta., will be the sole Canadian official at the event.

Olympian Profile: Kaitlyn Weaver & Andrew Poje

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Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje may be going to the Sochi Olympics as Canada’s number two ice dancing team, but they have turned into a charismatic force in their own right.

They choose music that sticks with you. They hold nothing back when they perform. They fly around the ice at great speed, he a 6-foot-3 force majeure, she an expressive, silky-footed coryphée with intense wattage. Together, they have earned the third highest scores (175.23) in the world in ice dance this Olympic season, although less than four points separate four teams who desperately want that bronze medal in Sochi.

Weaver and Poje have been together eight years and it’s been a whirlwind of quick success, stunning disappointment, brutal injury, triumph and lots of lots of standing ovations. Weaver had been a junior dancer from Houston, Texas, one of many trying out with Poje, a native of Waterloo, Ont., in the summer of 2006. Poje had tagged along to the rink with his sister, Julia, and found ice dancing suited him better than anything else. “At the very first tryout, we knew there was something,” Weaver said. “I knew I should do this.”

“People could tell right from the beginning,” said Poje. “We did so much so fast. We were thrust into opportunities. And then we had some growing pains.” Poje started with coach Paul McIntosh when he was five or six. MacIntosh was one of the early coaches of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir. He’s good at incubating ice dancers who become magnificent, apparently.

Now they’ve won seven medals at Canadian championships, bronze in senior after only five months together. Troubles: after Weaver raced to get her Canadian citizenship, they missed a trip to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics by three-tenths of a point, a crushing disappointment.

“It’s still a sore spot,” Weaver said. “I can tell you as I’m standing here right now that it makes me emotional about how we felt about that event four years ago. But that is the reason we don’t want to ever let that happen again and have been pushing ourselves so hard for the past four years. It feels like a lifetime ago and we’re different people now.”

She said they had to engage in a little “short term” memory for the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships that followed a week later. But they decided not to feel sorry for themselves, vowing to show the world what they could do. And they won it, with grace.

Their short dance this season to 42nd Street has received high praise on the international scene.

Their transitions into elements are mainly seamless. They have a lot of good connecting steps. They deliver a lot of innovative lifts, but they are never the sort of lifts where the arms and legs flail around into impossible positions. Each lift creates a picture, framed with the music. Their programs are spun by creative people: Pasquale Camerlengo and Shae-Lynn Bourne.

The free dance, to the crushing rawness of “Maria de Buenos Aires,” is a masterpiece of interpretation, according to Rod Garrossino, himself an ice dancer in his day. It is not easy to portray that raw sort of tango, he says, and they have captured it perfectly.

“This dance is the polar opposite to the short dance,” Poje said. “It’s very passionate and the program relies heavily on our connection and it’s to tango operetta.” The music has soul and emotion: perfect for this team who can wring tears out of thin air.

Indeed, they got a standing ovation at their first practice for just showing up at the world championship in London, Ontario last season, after Weaver suffered a fractured fibula, the small bone in the lower leg. The doctors’ prognosis: Weaver need not expect to get her foot back into her boot until April, 2013. The world championships were in March. Weaver skated in pain, with pins pressing against her boot. It was as gallant a comeback as Silken Laumann’s effort to get ready for the Barcelona Olympics after a training accident mangled a lower leg.

Weaver says her mother, Jackie, is the wind beneath her wings. “She is everything to me,” she said. “Every time I doubt myself, she tells me: ‘You can do this.’ She’s helped me to become the sublime optimist that I am. I have taken that into my partnership with Andrew.”

She says now that she’s forgotten about the injury, but acknowledges that their gritty comeback – and fifth-place finish at worlds – drove them both to greater heights. They found out how much they could push themselves to do what seemed impossible.

Now their aim is to be on the Olympic podium, standing beside Virtue and Moir. “I think we have every right, every ability to be there,” Weaver said.

They will go to the Olympics with no regrets. “I feel like we’re in a great place,” Weaver said. “Now we just need to keep working.”

Want to read more about the figure skaters who will compete at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi? Pick up Beverley Smith’s new book SKATING TO SOCHI! The book profiles the top 40 athletes/teams with full-colour photos! Order online: Amazon.com, Lulu.com (ebook) or iTunes (ebook).

Beverley Smith