Figure skatingFocus main priority for Canadian alternates

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Ice dancers Alexandra Paul, left, and Mitchell Islam finished third at the Canadian championships three months ago in Victoria. (Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)

The rescheduled world figure skating championships are slated to begin within the next two weeks in Moscow.

Canada has secured two berths in each of the pairs and ladies competition, while also holding three entries in ice dance and men's fields.

The Canadian roster has already been changed with competitors in the ladies and men's events. Both national silver medallists, Myriane Samson and Shawn Sawyer, will not compete, and alternates Amelie Lacoste and Kevin Reynolds will skate in their places.

In this unusual situation where the season has been extended by five weeks, how does an alternate keep up the motivation to work on material that by now would have been retired?

David Islam, the director of the ice dance program at the Mariposa Skating School and coach of Alexandra Paul and Mitchell Islam, is philosophical about the importance of continuing to train.

"The real shame here is not about not getting to compete, it's about if you get the phone call and we weren't ready," Islam says.

Paul and Mitchell Islam burst on to the senior scene this year, having finished with a silver medal at the world junior championships a year ago in their first season together. At the national championships in Victoria, they were on the podium with a bronze medal in their first trip to the senior level.

David Islam, who is also Mitchell's father, is the first to admit that it hasn't been easy to stay focused. He says the skaters have been great but that the situation has been a little trying.

Advantage to extended season

His strategy has been to break the training down and make very small session-to-session goals. The advantage in this extended season is that he has been able to use the whole "regular" season as a benchmark, and can see the progress that his skaters have made with regard to power and speed.

"One of the things we have tried to do is balance moving forward," he says. "The kids have goals [and] they know they need to be bigger, better, stronger. They have been doing a lot of 'grunt' stroking and as they are doing the old programs you can see the improvement already.

"If the season was over you would get into new choreography and not really be aware of the improvement. We see these programs are moving out a lot more so you can see the positives. You can pat yourself on the back. When the diagonal [footwork] isn't fitting because you are flying, that's a good thing."

The biggest challenge about the rescheduled worlds that Islam sees is the five fewer weeks on the calendar for work to be outsourced to choreographers. In Islam's program, he acknowledges that they do a lot of work in-house for the two junior, two senior and four Novice ice dance teams that are under his guidance and care.

He also likes to use choreographers who are hugely in demand like Marina Zoueva and Igor Shpillband. Islam predicts a logjam for the choreography's best and brightest who would normally be well under way preparing programs for the world's elite skaters.

Islam believes that Paul and Mitchell Islam will continue working intensely on this year's programs for another week or so, after which it would be very difficult to obtain the necessary visas in time for them to compete in Moscow if it were to become necessary.

Understanding that hard work is never a waste of time, David Islam also acknowledges another plus that has come out of this additional training.

"Mitch likes to say 'I now know we won't be alternates again next year.'"

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