Jenna McCORKELL is a Ladies Singles skater who represents Great Britain. She was born on 15[SUP]th[/SUP] September 1986 in Coleraine, Northern Ireland.
She won the British Senior Ladies Championship eleven times in the space of twelve years.
In 2008, Jenna married 8-times Belgian Senior Men’s Champion Kevin van der Perren. Their son, Ben, was born in August 2019.
Quite simply, the most successful figure skater ever to come out of Northern Ireland.
Jenna is around the same age as me. Her hometown is 40 miles from my hometown. We both started skating at the same rink (albeit 10 years apart). I was following her career even before I started following figure skating.
So, I wouldn’t seem right if I did not adopt her!
Jenna is the perfect example of how important it is to have access to ice rinks if we want to get more children into the sport. At the time she was growing up, there was an ice rink in Coleraine. Jenna tried it out when she was seven, liked it, and went on to became the most successful figure skater in these islands. Unfortunately, the ice rink at the Jet Centre has now closed down, meaning that there are now no ice rinks in Northern Ireland outside of Belfast.
During her time training at the Jet Centre, Jenna was coached by former World Professional Champion Lorna Brown, who would also go on to choreograph for Jenna. After this, Jenna moved to Dundonald Ice Bowl, where she was coached by Belfast’s Margaret O’Neill, who is best known as the driving force behind the development of figure skating in the South.
It was while training with Margaret that Jenna made her international debut. She finished 6th in her first Junior Grand Prix in Sweden, and improved this to 5th in her second a week later in Italy. After finishing 2nd in the British Junior Championships, she made her debut at the Junior World Championships, finishing 10th in her qualifying group, and then 12th in the competition proper.
In 2002, Jenna moved over to Coventry in England to train with Russian coach Yuri Bureiko. And it did not take long to see the results. She made her Senior international debut at the Nebelhorn Trophy in September, and was 5th in the Short Programme! This was followed by 10th in the Free, which gave her a credible 9th overall. A month later, Jenna made her international podium debut at her first Junior Grand Prix of the season, the Pokal der Blauen Schwerter. And, in December, she got a clean sweep of first places in the December 2002 British Senior Championships – her first National title!
In January 2013, Jenna made her debut at the European Championships, finishing 10th in her qualifying group and 19th overall. After improving her Junior World Championship placement to 11th, Jenna made her debut in the Senior World Championship. Here, she finished 11th in her qualifying group (2 places above future European Champion Sarah Meier), and 21st in the competition proper (2 places below future European Champion Sarah Meier).
The milestones of Jenna’s 2003/04 season included making her Senior Grand Prix debut in France (her first competition under the International Judging System), finishing 8th overall. She also improved her placement at the European Championships, coming back from 20th in the SP to finish 14th overall. 2004 also marked Jenna’s final appearance at Junior Worlds, finishing 6th in her qualifying group, and 13th overall.
The 2004/05 season started with a debut Senior international podium with a silver medal at the Ondrej Nepela Memorial. The other main highlight was a clean sweep of 1st Positions in the British Championships for the third season in a row. Incidentally, this was Jenna’s final competition under the 6.0 System.
The 2005/06 season was a disaster. After competing in 2 Senior B’s, Jenna broke her leg. She missed the whole of the rest of the season, as well as the start of the next. This not only allowed Vanessa James to interrupt Jenna’s run of British titles, but it also meant that Jenna missed the Turin Olympics.
This break (pardon the pun) marked a number of changes to Jenna’s life. First, she moved to Belgium to live with her boyfriend, Kevin van der Perren. She also started training in Liedekerke (not far from Kevin’s hometown), under Kevin’s coach, Vera Vandecaveye.
As she was training in Belgium, Jenna was entered into the Belgian Championships as a guest competitor. In the November 2006 edition, she won a close Free Skate, but finished 2nd overall behind Isabelle Pieman (who had won the Short Programme by nearly 5 points). But, in the November 2007 edition, Jenna was a convincing winner in both segments, and hence overall.
In the same 2 seasons, Jenna again won the British Championships. However, the January 2007 edition was the first of only 2 times in her Senior National career that Jenna did not get a clean sweep of wins, as Vanessa James won the Free Skate (the second time was in November 2010, when Scotland’s Karly Robertson won the Short Programme). In the January 2008 edition, Jenna achieved her national Personal Best score in the FS.
Internationally, the highlights of this period of Jenna’s career came in the 2007/08 season. She got another medal at the Ondrej Nepela Memorial, although this time it was bronze. And she achieved her best finish in the European Championships, with an 8th position overall.
However, it was getting expensive to train in Belgium, so Jenna and Kevin returned to Coventry to train with Bureiko. The Belgian connection was kept by adding Silvie de Rijcke to the coaching team. This set-up would only last 1 season, after which de Rijcke focussed on Kevin (until his retirement in April 2012), while Bureiko focussed on Jenna (until she changed coaches in April 2011).
During this period, Jenna finished in the top 6 of every Senior B she competed in, including winning a bronze medal at the 2008 Golden Spin. She also achieved her best finish at the World Championships, finishing 14th overall in 2010. Jenna also finally got to make her Olympics debut in 2010, but it was to be a brief one as finishing 29th in the SP meant she did not advance to the FS.
From the 2011/12 season until she retired, Jenna was coached by Simon Briggs in Dundee, Scotland and Ninove, Belgium. In their first season together, Jenna finished 5th (Ondrej Nepela Memorial), 8th (Coupe de Nice) and 4th (Golden Spin) in the Senior B’s she competed in. Then she won the Preliminary Round of the World Championships, and repeated her best finish of 14th in the competition proper.
The following season started with a bang, when Jenna got her first Senior international gold medal, with a clean sweep of 1st places at the 2012 Ondrej Nepela Memorial. This was followed a month later by another international gold medal, after another clean sweep of 1st places at the Ice Challenge. She also scored all of her Personal Best scores at this competition (and by that I mean absolute Personal Bests, as this is one of the rare occasions where the PB’s from Nationals are lower).
The 2013/14 season was Jenna’s final season competing. She competed in 3 Senior B’s at the start of the season, the third of which she won her final international medal at, a silver at the 2013 Volvo Open. Three weeks later she got a clean sweep of 1st places in her final British Championships, setting her national Personal Bests in the SP and overall.
In her final appearance at the European Championships, Jenna was the final skater to make it through to the Free Skate. Although she improved to 23rd in the FS, she stayed in 24th overall.
At the Olympics, Jenna got to compete in the Team event, and although she managed to get a MUCH higher score in her SP than she got at Europeans (we are talking over 10 points), it still meant that she finished in 10th, and did not get to perform her FS. In the Individual competition, Jenna’s SP score was still a lot higher than at Europeans, but it was 2 points lower than in the Team event. And that was enough to mean that she missed out on getting through to the FS by just 0.12 points.
Jenna’s final competitive appearance came at the 2014 World Championships. This time she finished 20th in the SP, with a score that was higher than she achieved at the Olympic Team Event. But, unfortunately, she had to withdraw before the FS through sickness, and so finished 24th overall.
It was a disappointing way for Jenna to end her career, but the career itself was anything but disappointing. 11 British Championship titles in the space of 12 years is a remarkable achievement, which I doubt will ever be surpassed.
For many skaters, a broken leg would be the beginning of the end. Especially for a skater in their twenties. But, Jenna showed she is a typical Ulster woman and fought back against the odds. And she didn’t do it by halves. At a time when most skaters her age are thinking of retiring, Jenna had a real resurgence in her career. There are not many skaters in their late-twenties that win a competition. But Jenna did. Twice.
When you look at everything she has done, Jenna has been a great ambassador for Northern Ireland. And for that, all her fans back home thank her.
Now, Jenna and Kevin have started coaching together in Belgium. And if these young skaters have the same drive and determination as their mentors, then they will have a great future in this sport.
Biographical Info
ISU Bio:
http://www.isuresults.com/bios/isufs00005683.htm
Ice Network Bio:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180701180919/http://web.icenetwork.com/skaters/profile/jenna_mccorkell
Rink Results Bio:
http://www.rinkresults.com/skater?skater_id=16
Stats On Ice Bio:
https://www.statsonice.com/skater/jennamccorkell/
Tracings Bio:
http://www.tracings.net/mcco-jenn.html
Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenna_McCorkell
Social Media
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/jenna.mccorkell
Instagram:
https://instagram.com/jenna_mccorkell/
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/jennamccorkell
Website:
http://www.jennamccorkell.com/
Programmes
2013–14 Season
SP: “Imagined Oceans” by Karl Jenkins
FS: “Evita” by Andrew Lloyd Webber
EX:
2012–13 Season
SP: “Imagined Oceans” by Karl Jenkins
FS: “Where Have All The Flowers Gone”
EX:
2011–12 Season
SP: “Capone” (from “Celtic Tiger”) by Ronan Hardiman
FS: “Where Have All The Flowers Gone”
EX:
2010–11 Season
SP: “Totentanz” by Franz Liszt
FS: “Voice of Violin” by Joshua Bell, and “Allegro from Music for Strings” by April G. Faure
EX:
2009–10 Season
SP: “Totentanz” by Franz Liszt
FS: “Voice of Violin” by Joshua Bell, and “Allegro from Music for Strings” by April G. Faure
EX:
2008–09 Season
SP: “Harem” by Sarah Brightman
FS: “Journey of Man” and “Selection of music” (both from “Cirque du Soleil”)
EX:
2007–08 Season
SP: “Harem” by Sarah Brightman
FS: “Frida” by Elliot Goldenthal
EX:
2006–07 Season
SP: “1001 Nights”
FS: “Frida” by Elliot Goldenthal
EX:
2004–05 Season
SP: “Meditation from Thais” by Jules Massenet
FS: “Swan Lake” by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
EX:
2003–04 Season
SP: “Poeme” by Secret Garden
FS: “Toccata and Fugue in D-Minor” (modern version) by Johann Sebastian Bach, and “Storm” (from “The Four Seasons”) by Antonio Vivaldi
EX:
2002–03 Season
SP: “Piano Concerto No. 1” by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
FS: “Xotica” (from “Holiday on Ice”) by Rene Dupere
EX:
2001–02 Season
SP: “Time to Say Goodbye” by Andrea Bocelli
FS: “Legends of the Fall” by James Horner, “Antz”, “Pearl Harbour” by Hans Zimmer, and “The Mask of Zorro” by James Horner
EX:
Personal Best Scores
ISU Personal Best Scores for Jenna McCorkell:
http://www.isuresults.com/bios/isufs_pb_00005683.htm
+3 / -3 Grade Of Execution System
The Personal Best and Season Best scores that the ISU uses for a skater only take into consideration certain competitions. For example, they do not take into consideration domestic competitions, such as Sectional, Regional or National Championships.
The table below takes into consideration all the events that the skater has taken part in. These scores are referred to as “Absolute Personal Best” and “Absolute Season’s Best” so as to distinguish them from the scores recorded by the ISU.
The Absolute designations are based purely on the contents of the Competitive History table in this post. If anybody knows of any scores that are not in the table, please let us know, and we will be only too happy to add them in.
She won the British Senior Ladies Championship eleven times in the space of twelve years.
In 2008, Jenna married 8-times Belgian Senior Men’s Champion Kevin van der Perren. Their son, Ben, was born in August 2019.
Quite simply, the most successful figure skater ever to come out of Northern Ireland.
Jenna is around the same age as me. Her hometown is 40 miles from my hometown. We both started skating at the same rink (albeit 10 years apart). I was following her career even before I started following figure skating.
So, I wouldn’t seem right if I did not adopt her!
Jenna is the perfect example of how important it is to have access to ice rinks if we want to get more children into the sport. At the time she was growing up, there was an ice rink in Coleraine. Jenna tried it out when she was seven, liked it, and went on to became the most successful figure skater in these islands. Unfortunately, the ice rink at the Jet Centre has now closed down, meaning that there are now no ice rinks in Northern Ireland outside of Belfast.
During her time training at the Jet Centre, Jenna was coached by former World Professional Champion Lorna Brown, who would also go on to choreograph for Jenna. After this, Jenna moved to Dundonald Ice Bowl, where she was coached by Belfast’s Margaret O’Neill, who is best known as the driving force behind the development of figure skating in the South.
It was while training with Margaret that Jenna made her international debut. She finished 6th in her first Junior Grand Prix in Sweden, and improved this to 5th in her second a week later in Italy. After finishing 2nd in the British Junior Championships, she made her debut at the Junior World Championships, finishing 10th in her qualifying group, and then 12th in the competition proper.
In 2002, Jenna moved over to Coventry in England to train with Russian coach Yuri Bureiko. And it did not take long to see the results. She made her Senior international debut at the Nebelhorn Trophy in September, and was 5th in the Short Programme! This was followed by 10th in the Free, which gave her a credible 9th overall. A month later, Jenna made her international podium debut at her first Junior Grand Prix of the season, the Pokal der Blauen Schwerter. And, in December, she got a clean sweep of first places in the December 2002 British Senior Championships – her first National title!
In January 2013, Jenna made her debut at the European Championships, finishing 10th in her qualifying group and 19th overall. After improving her Junior World Championship placement to 11th, Jenna made her debut in the Senior World Championship. Here, she finished 11th in her qualifying group (2 places above future European Champion Sarah Meier), and 21st in the competition proper (2 places below future European Champion Sarah Meier).
The milestones of Jenna’s 2003/04 season included making her Senior Grand Prix debut in France (her first competition under the International Judging System), finishing 8th overall. She also improved her placement at the European Championships, coming back from 20th in the SP to finish 14th overall. 2004 also marked Jenna’s final appearance at Junior Worlds, finishing 6th in her qualifying group, and 13th overall.
The 2004/05 season started with a debut Senior international podium with a silver medal at the Ondrej Nepela Memorial. The other main highlight was a clean sweep of 1st Positions in the British Championships for the third season in a row. Incidentally, this was Jenna’s final competition under the 6.0 System.
The 2005/06 season was a disaster. After competing in 2 Senior B’s, Jenna broke her leg. She missed the whole of the rest of the season, as well as the start of the next. This not only allowed Vanessa James to interrupt Jenna’s run of British titles, but it also meant that Jenna missed the Turin Olympics.
This break (pardon the pun) marked a number of changes to Jenna’s life. First, she moved to Belgium to live with her boyfriend, Kevin van der Perren. She also started training in Liedekerke (not far from Kevin’s hometown), under Kevin’s coach, Vera Vandecaveye.
As she was training in Belgium, Jenna was entered into the Belgian Championships as a guest competitor. In the November 2006 edition, she won a close Free Skate, but finished 2nd overall behind Isabelle Pieman (who had won the Short Programme by nearly 5 points). But, in the November 2007 edition, Jenna was a convincing winner in both segments, and hence overall.
In the same 2 seasons, Jenna again won the British Championships. However, the January 2007 edition was the first of only 2 times in her Senior National career that Jenna did not get a clean sweep of wins, as Vanessa James won the Free Skate (the second time was in November 2010, when Scotland’s Karly Robertson won the Short Programme). In the January 2008 edition, Jenna achieved her national Personal Best score in the FS.
Internationally, the highlights of this period of Jenna’s career came in the 2007/08 season. She got another medal at the Ondrej Nepela Memorial, although this time it was bronze. And she achieved her best finish in the European Championships, with an 8th position overall.
However, it was getting expensive to train in Belgium, so Jenna and Kevin returned to Coventry to train with Bureiko. The Belgian connection was kept by adding Silvie de Rijcke to the coaching team. This set-up would only last 1 season, after which de Rijcke focussed on Kevin (until his retirement in April 2012), while Bureiko focussed on Jenna (until she changed coaches in April 2011).
During this period, Jenna finished in the top 6 of every Senior B she competed in, including winning a bronze medal at the 2008 Golden Spin. She also achieved her best finish at the World Championships, finishing 14th overall in 2010. Jenna also finally got to make her Olympics debut in 2010, but it was to be a brief one as finishing 29th in the SP meant she did not advance to the FS.
From the 2011/12 season until she retired, Jenna was coached by Simon Briggs in Dundee, Scotland and Ninove, Belgium. In their first season together, Jenna finished 5th (Ondrej Nepela Memorial), 8th (Coupe de Nice) and 4th (Golden Spin) in the Senior B’s she competed in. Then she won the Preliminary Round of the World Championships, and repeated her best finish of 14th in the competition proper.
The following season started with a bang, when Jenna got her first Senior international gold medal, with a clean sweep of 1st places at the 2012 Ondrej Nepela Memorial. This was followed a month later by another international gold medal, after another clean sweep of 1st places at the Ice Challenge. She also scored all of her Personal Best scores at this competition (and by that I mean absolute Personal Bests, as this is one of the rare occasions where the PB’s from Nationals are lower).
The 2013/14 season was Jenna’s final season competing. She competed in 3 Senior B’s at the start of the season, the third of which she won her final international medal at, a silver at the 2013 Volvo Open. Three weeks later she got a clean sweep of 1st places in her final British Championships, setting her national Personal Bests in the SP and overall.
In her final appearance at the European Championships, Jenna was the final skater to make it through to the Free Skate. Although she improved to 23rd in the FS, she stayed in 24th overall.
At the Olympics, Jenna got to compete in the Team event, and although she managed to get a MUCH higher score in her SP than she got at Europeans (we are talking over 10 points), it still meant that she finished in 10th, and did not get to perform her FS. In the Individual competition, Jenna’s SP score was still a lot higher than at Europeans, but it was 2 points lower than in the Team event. And that was enough to mean that she missed out on getting through to the FS by just 0.12 points.
Jenna’s final competitive appearance came at the 2014 World Championships. This time she finished 20th in the SP, with a score that was higher than she achieved at the Olympic Team Event. But, unfortunately, she had to withdraw before the FS through sickness, and so finished 24th overall.
It was a disappointing way for Jenna to end her career, but the career itself was anything but disappointing. 11 British Championship titles in the space of 12 years is a remarkable achievement, which I doubt will ever be surpassed.
For many skaters, a broken leg would be the beginning of the end. Especially for a skater in their twenties. But, Jenna showed she is a typical Ulster woman and fought back against the odds. And she didn’t do it by halves. At a time when most skaters her age are thinking of retiring, Jenna had a real resurgence in her career. There are not many skaters in their late-twenties that win a competition. But Jenna did. Twice.
When you look at everything she has done, Jenna has been a great ambassador for Northern Ireland. And for that, all her fans back home thank her.
Now, Jenna and Kevin have started coaching together in Belgium. And if these young skaters have the same drive and determination as their mentors, then they will have a great future in this sport.
Biographical Info
ISU Bio:
http://www.isuresults.com/bios/isufs00005683.htm
Ice Network Bio:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180701180919/http://web.icenetwork.com/skaters/profile/jenna_mccorkell
Rink Results Bio:
http://www.rinkresults.com/skater?skater_id=16
Stats On Ice Bio:
https://www.statsonice.com/skater/jennamccorkell/
Tracings Bio:
http://www.tracings.net/mcco-jenn.html
Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenna_McCorkell
Social Media
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/jenna.mccorkell
Instagram:
https://instagram.com/jenna_mccorkell/
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/jennamccorkell
Website:
http://www.jennamccorkell.com/
Programmes
2013–14 Season
SP: “Imagined Oceans” by Karl Jenkins
FS: “Evita” by Andrew Lloyd Webber
EX:
2012–13 Season
SP: “Imagined Oceans” by Karl Jenkins
FS: “Where Have All The Flowers Gone”
EX:
2011–12 Season
SP: “Capone” (from “Celtic Tiger”) by Ronan Hardiman
FS: “Where Have All The Flowers Gone”
EX:
2010–11 Season
SP: “Totentanz” by Franz Liszt
FS: “Voice of Violin” by Joshua Bell, and “Allegro from Music for Strings” by April G. Faure
EX:
2009–10 Season
SP: “Totentanz” by Franz Liszt
FS: “Voice of Violin” by Joshua Bell, and “Allegro from Music for Strings” by April G. Faure
EX:
2008–09 Season
SP: “Harem” by Sarah Brightman
FS: “Journey of Man” and “Selection of music” (both from “Cirque du Soleil”)
EX:
2007–08 Season
SP: “Harem” by Sarah Brightman
FS: “Frida” by Elliot Goldenthal
EX:
2006–07 Season
SP: “1001 Nights”
FS: “Frida” by Elliot Goldenthal
EX:
2004–05 Season
SP: “Meditation from Thais” by Jules Massenet
FS: “Swan Lake” by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
EX:
2003–04 Season
SP: “Poeme” by Secret Garden
FS: “Toccata and Fugue in D-Minor” (modern version) by Johann Sebastian Bach, and “Storm” (from “The Four Seasons”) by Antonio Vivaldi
EX:
2002–03 Season
SP: “Piano Concerto No. 1” by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
FS: “Xotica” (from “Holiday on Ice”) by Rene Dupere
EX:
2001–02 Season
SP: “Time to Say Goodbye” by Andrea Bocelli
FS: “Legends of the Fall” by James Horner, “Antz”, “Pearl Harbour” by Hans Zimmer, and “The Mask of Zorro” by James Horner
EX:
Personal Best Scores
ISU Personal Best Scores for Jenna McCorkell:
http://www.isuresults.com/bios/isufs_pb_00005683.htm
+3 / -3 Grade Of Execution System
The Personal Best and Season Best scores that the ISU uses for a skater only take into consideration certain competitions. For example, they do not take into consideration domestic competitions, such as Sectional, Regional or National Championships.
The table below takes into consideration all the events that the skater has taken part in. These scores are referred to as “Absolute Personal Best” and “Absolute Season’s Best” so as to distinguish them from the scores recorded by the ISU.
Absolute Personal Best Score | Absolute Season’s Best Score |
The Absolute designations are based purely on the contents of the Competitive History table in this post. If anybody knows of any scores that are not in the table, please let us know, and we will be only too happy to add them in.
Ladies | Short Programme | Free Skate | Total |