Will Canada win gold in figure skating?
The Canadian National Figure Skating Championships were held in London, Ontario this past weekend. Fortunately, I was flipping channels on Saturday and noticed it was being televised.
I managed to catch the Men's Short program and saw 19-year-old Patrick Chan give an incredible performance. I missed the long program on Sunday, but Patrick made the front cover of the Vancouver Sun newspaper this morning, so I'm very excited that he'll be representing Canada at the Olympics in less than a month. If you're interested in reading more about Patrick Chan, click on his official website here.
There has been a bit of controversy about Patrick's recent dismissal of his coach Don Laws and his change to choreographer Lori Nichol and Christy Krall from Colorado Springs, Colo. Last year, Patrick had a severe case of the flu and a calf injury which kept him from valuable training time. However, he is back and in full fighting form, ready for the 2010 Olympics.
There has been a bit of controversy about Patrick's recent dismissal of his coach Don Laws and his change to choreographer Lori Nichol and Christy Krall from Colorado Springs, Colo. Last year, Patrick had a severe case of the flu and a calf injury which kept him from valuable training time. However, he is back and in full fighting form, ready for the 2010 Olympics.
I saw the Ladies Final on Saturday, too, and watched as 23-year-old Joannie Rochette (right) won her sixth Canadian Championship. She looked so graceful, yet athletic, as she easily beat 2nd place finisher 22-year-old Cynthia Phaneuf (below)who will join her as Canada's representatives in the Ladies' program. You can see Joannie's official website here. Joannie won the silver medal in the 2009 World Figure Skating Championships, so we're really hopeful that she will win the gold here in her home country. You can read about her skating career here on Wikipedia.
Don't count out Cynthia Phaneuf, though! She won the Junior Canadian National Championship in 2004 and has also won medals in 2005 and 2009. I absolutely loved her artistic interpretation of the music from Mission Cleopatra on Saturday, and if it hadn't been for a couple of mistakes, she might have beaten Joannie.
And of course don't forget about our Pairs champions Jessica Dube and Bryce Davison and the Ice Dancing champions Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue.
In the Vancouver Sun today it was reported that all members of our Figure Skating Team "have been on the circuit for at least two seasons and the medal collection is impressive. Between the bunch of them, they have also won five world championship medals."
So keep your eyes on Canada for winning some medals in Figure Skating.
This is the sport that I will be watching next month as I became interested in it years and years ago when I learned how to skate. Although I never had any pretensions of becoming famous in this area, one of my daughters did compete up to a certain level until we discovered her feet were a bit crooked. And that was that. *sigh*
This is the sport that I will be watching next month as I became interested in it years and years ago when I learned how to skate. Although I never had any pretensions of becoming famous in this area, one of my daughters did compete up to a certain level until we discovered her feet were a bit crooked. And that was that. *sigh*
