Just saw an interesting post on the ISAI Facebook page that gives answers to quite a few things I have been wondering:
https://www.facebook.com/iceskatingassociationofireland/posts/2810163985679797
So, long time Irish representative in Seniors Ladies who we haven't seen for a couple of seasons, Clara Peters, is now coaching. And so is Edward Alton, half of the only Pairs partnership that I know of to come out of Northern Ireland (his skating partner, Tameron Drake, has now been the reigning Northern Ireland Junior Ladies Champion for over 10 years. It is well past time to get the competition running again!)
A third coach was also mentioned as attending the seminars discussed - Anastasia Kuzmina. Is this the Russian Pairs skater who used to compete with Stanislav Evdokimov? (
ISU Bio) I can't find any photos or videos of them, so I can't compare faces to see if they are the same person. And, of course, any Google searches for her name come up with the Biathlete who I still tend to refer to by her maiden name of Anastasiya Shipulina.
Meanwhile, over in Scotland...
Going into day 3 of the Tayside Trophy Club competition, and Junior Ladies is the only competition of the "older" age group levels to have started.
Adare Condon, one of the skaters from the New York club, is leading after the SP. But one of the Scottish girls, Louise Falconer, is only 0.3 behind her. In fact, the entire field is covered by only 10 points, so everything is still up for grabs.
I don't know for sure, but it looks like Magnum Club skater Rowena Mackessack-Leitch has withdrawn from Senior Ladies. Because, although the SP hasn't been held yet, the starting order for the FS is already up, and it only has the 2 Dundee Club skaters listed (Lana Bagen and Nikita Heathfield). The SP starting order had all 3 names.
There is a similar situation in Junior Men, where the Irish skater, Dillon Judge, is in the starting order for the SP but is missing from the starting order for the FS. Although it may have been the case in Senior Ladies that the Dundee Club had a pre-determined FS start order for their own skaters, this is not what has happened in Junior Men. Because although Kyle McLeod is representing Dundee, Elliot Appleby is representing Romford.
I have to admit, I was disappointed to see that the girl that stuck in my head as representing Dundonald withdrew. :disapp: I was actually looking forward to seeing how she got on because I saw a video of her doing a Biellmann spin in combination on her coach's Facebook page, and it looked very good. :agree:
EDIT: Just discovered that there is a livestream for the Tayside Trophy, provided on the "Dundee Ice Sports Live" YouTube channel. I don't know if we are allowed to post links to the streams in this thread, but I have
posted them over in the dedicated Competition Thread.
Today's stream starts in about 90 minutes from now.
Please be aware, some of the archived streams have already been blocked due to copyright claims by music companies.

You do realise that you're the prime suspect, given that we all know that you're Scottish. So, it maybe wasn't a good idea for you to be the person to actually say what we were all thinking. Unless, of course, this is a clever attempt at a double-bluff to throw us off the scent...
CaroLiza_fan