Young skaters eager to wear maple leaf
Last Updated: Sunday, January 17, 2010 | 10:10 PM ET
The Canadian Press
Canada's Olympic figure skating team might be short on experience but it already boasts some impressive results.
And the Vancouver-bound skaters believe that youth won't be a factor when they carry Canada's lofty hopes into the Pacific Coliseum next month in one of the Winter Games' high-profile events.
Patrick Chan, who's barely 19, along with ice dancers Tessa Virtue, 20, and Scott Moir, 22, along with 24-year-old Joannie Rochette, will lead the charge to the podium in a sport in which Canada has won a medal in every Games going back to 1984.
"It's younger, but I think this team is especially strong because we've got a chance of a medal in every discipline," said Rochette, one of the relative elders among the group.
The team was determined at the Canadian championships that ended Sunday in London, Ont., and only four of the 12 athletes — Rochette, Jessica Dube and partner Bryce Davison, and Anabelle Langlois — have any Olympic experience.
But they've already shone on one the sport's biggest stage — all of the Canadian champions are already world medallists.
"Young, dynamic, a lot of skaters that are pushing and leading the world, not in a different direction, but in a quality direction of skating," Davison said, summing up the squad.
"I think we're a strong skating nation, so even if we're young I think we're very competitive," added Moir.
Canada has two entries in each of the four disciplines in Vancouver. The Canadian silver medallists that are also Olympic bound — most of whom will be reaching their peak in 2014 — are Cynthia Phaneuf and Vaughn Chipeur in women's and men's singles, Vanessa Crone and Paul Poirier in dance, and Langlois and Cody Hay in pairs.
The battle for a berth in Vancouver brought out the best in Canada's top skaters, capped by Chan's free program Sunday night that earned him a world's best total score.
"I feel awesome," Chan said with a wide grin. "I'm really taken aback with everything that's happened here. With all the hardship that I had this season, I was able to come through with a good performance here, and to get to put that [Canadian team] jacket on, you start realizing, I'm really going to the Olympics."
His 268.02 points topped Daisuke Takahashi's score of 264.41 set in 2008, although national scores aren't recognized internationally — it's assumed that scores at national events are usually inflated about 10 per cent.
Rochette roared back from her own frustrating season to lay down arguably her finest skate yet in the long program.
"I think everyone is ready for Vancouver, and even here, the decision was tough in a couple of events, it is so close," said Rochette, who was a disappointing fifth at the Grand Prix final last month. "We have more depth now [in Canada], and that's why I think the top athletes are getting stronger and stronger."
Both the pairs and ice-dance events came down to the wire, with less than a point deciding silver and bronze in the dance.
Canada's team heads to Vancouver poised to better the lone skating medal won in 2006 in Turin, Italy — a bronze by Jeffrey Buttle.
Because of the team's youthfulness, Mike Slipchuk, Skate Canada's high-performance director, assembled the support staff for Vancouver with Games experience as a key requirement.
The Olympic skating competition begins Feb. 14 in Vancouver.
