It's 'do or die' time for Canada's Joannie Rochette. Widely regarded to be one of the Olympic frontrunners for the women's figure skating title, the defending world silver medallist seemed to lose her way during the first half of the season.

Rochette went to the Grand Prix Final but failed to perform to her potential; coming home with a fourth place finish.

It has to be said that she isn't the only one. Mao Asada, the 2008 World Champion from Japan, failed to qualify for the ISU Grand Prix Final. Also, Korea's Yu Na Kim, the defending world champion, had Grand Prix victories were not the most decisive.

With the Olympics now weeks away, is there any way to regain the momentum that she so easily created all last season?

She has a couple of significant things going for her. The first is the return of the National Figure Skating Championships to London, Ont., which is the site of the first of her five consecutive Canadian titles. From a psychological standpoint, returning to the scene of earlier successes has to be a help.

She also has the support of Skate Canada and its high performance director, Michael Slipchuk, himself an Olympian with the 1992 team. Slipchuk acknowledges that, along with others in the organization, the experience of being an Olympian or going through an Olympic cycle gives a person the ability to relate to the ups and downs that go along with that.

"Our goal is to help support the skaters and coaches and give them some insight as to how to get the best possible result," said Slipchuk. "In an Olympic season people often over-scrutinize the early results and with Joannie's results from a year ago she was obviously going to be in the limelight."

Rochette 'ready to go'

As far as the national championships go: "In 1988 Brian Orser didn't have a great showing at nationals, nor did Jamie Sale and David Pelletier in 2002, but once the Olympics happened and they earned their silver and gold medals, respectively, no one remembers that." In other words, Canadians are just a step along the way to Vancouver, although Slipchuk is quick to point out that Rochette is ready to go.

In my opinion, the other trick in her bag is her skating. She is artistic, graceful and has a powerful technical arsenal at her disposal. This year's free program is to Samson and Delilah and was created by famed choreographer Lori Nichol. In interviews throughout the season, Joannie has talked about the power of the piece and the sophistication required in portraying temptress Delilah.

In an exclusive phone interview this week, Lori said, "she always loved that music and wanted to skate to it but the timing wasn't right until now. Having gotten to know her better, I felt she was ready to take on Delilah and it was a great character to bite into."

Will she be able to make it happen? Lori explains: "As a competitor, everyone has good and bad times, but I know that when I saw her this past week to tweak things she was looking really good."

Really good is what Joannie is going to have to be in order to achieve her podium goal in Vancouver. By taking competitions "one at a time," as Joannie has been fond of saying this season, that goal is still well within her grasp. First things first though, and that is defending her title in London this coming week at the BMO Canadian Figure Skating Championships.