- Joined
- Jul 28, 2003
Always good to hear from Debbi! Here is her outlook on Canadian Figure Skating. Sounds very positive.
Wilkes: A New Era
1/8/2004
Here we are in Edmonton, Alberta and it's minus 150 degrees, dare I say a touch colder than I'm used to? Cold outside, but percolating inside where the top skaters in the country are putting their stuff on the line in the hopes of winning Canadian junior and senior titles.
For a few, nerves are raw. For everyone, expectations are high.
It's the few minutes out of a year's training where everything � every dollar spent and every sacrifice made � either becomes worthwhile with a good skate or futile if the bottom falls out. And remember, no plan and no amount of training can guarantee a good skate, although the best and most honest understand there's no easy way to the top. It's nothing but hard work!
Early in the event, this Canadians already had the usual stories of success and disappointment, happy stories like Mira Leung and sad stories like Lauren Wilson.
Women's competitor Mira Leung from Vancouver vaulted out of nowhere to 3rd in her Q Round with only one-year of national competition under her belt.
For 2002 Junior Ladies Champ Lauren Wilson, it was the opposite kind of story. Life dealt her a bad hand when she came down with a terrible cold that sapped her strength for the Q. After finishing 8th in Senior last year, a huge leap for a first try at the nation's highest level, this year she couldn't even make it to the Short program.
Thrills and chills for sure � but this Canadians has something else too.
It feels like hope.
Although the new marking system, Code of Points, is not being used here (it was strictly a test situation for the fall's Grand Prix Series and Final - more on that later in the week), its impact is being felt around the world. Suddenly here at home skaters sense it's a new era, one of fairness and accountability. Although judges are bumping between C of P and the 6.0 system, remnants of the positive details from C of P have created better performances from the judges too.
From the skaters' perspectives, at last it really doesn't matter who you are or where you're from. Do your job and deliver the goods out there on the competitive surface and you can win.
Talk about a new era!
Here at Canadians, there are other factors at work as well.
Any time throughout an Olympic cycle - and we're half way through one now - when the marquis names disappear, doors swing wide open for new talent to skate through. Maybe to the audience and fans it feels like a downturn in the quality of competition but it takes times like these for significant change and development to occur. My experience has been that some of the greatest improvement happens during the week of practice before an open competition. Despite the fact there are favorites and defending champions here this year, nobody is a shoe-in.
For the first time in more than a decade, there is homegrown talent ready for the world level once you look past the top 2 leaders. And with the world order in such a state of upheaval passing titles back and forth, from the look of things today, more than one Canadian competitor could fit nicely on a world podium.
For tsn.ca, I'm Debbi Wilkes.
Wilkes: A New Era
1/8/2004
Here we are in Edmonton, Alberta and it's minus 150 degrees, dare I say a touch colder than I'm used to? Cold outside, but percolating inside where the top skaters in the country are putting their stuff on the line in the hopes of winning Canadian junior and senior titles.
For a few, nerves are raw. For everyone, expectations are high.
It's the few minutes out of a year's training where everything � every dollar spent and every sacrifice made � either becomes worthwhile with a good skate or futile if the bottom falls out. And remember, no plan and no amount of training can guarantee a good skate, although the best and most honest understand there's no easy way to the top. It's nothing but hard work!
Early in the event, this Canadians already had the usual stories of success and disappointment, happy stories like Mira Leung and sad stories like Lauren Wilson.
Women's competitor Mira Leung from Vancouver vaulted out of nowhere to 3rd in her Q Round with only one-year of national competition under her belt.
For 2002 Junior Ladies Champ Lauren Wilson, it was the opposite kind of story. Life dealt her a bad hand when she came down with a terrible cold that sapped her strength for the Q. After finishing 8th in Senior last year, a huge leap for a first try at the nation's highest level, this year she couldn't even make it to the Short program.
Thrills and chills for sure � but this Canadians has something else too.
It feels like hope.
Although the new marking system, Code of Points, is not being used here (it was strictly a test situation for the fall's Grand Prix Series and Final - more on that later in the week), its impact is being felt around the world. Suddenly here at home skaters sense it's a new era, one of fairness and accountability. Although judges are bumping between C of P and the 6.0 system, remnants of the positive details from C of P have created better performances from the judges too.
From the skaters' perspectives, at last it really doesn't matter who you are or where you're from. Do your job and deliver the goods out there on the competitive surface and you can win.
Talk about a new era!
Here at Canadians, there are other factors at work as well.
Any time throughout an Olympic cycle - and we're half way through one now - when the marquis names disappear, doors swing wide open for new talent to skate through. Maybe to the audience and fans it feels like a downturn in the quality of competition but it takes times like these for significant change and development to occur. My experience has been that some of the greatest improvement happens during the week of practice before an open competition. Despite the fact there are favorites and defending champions here this year, nobody is a shoe-in.
For the first time in more than a decade, there is homegrown talent ready for the world level once you look past the top 2 leaders. And with the world order in such a state of upheaval passing titles back and forth, from the look of things today, more than one Canadian competitor could fit nicely on a world podium.
For tsn.ca, I'm Debbi Wilkes.
