LaFleche skates at Nationals
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Rachel LaFleche was in a league of her own at the Western Ontario Sectionals, Nov. 11-13 in Komoka.
Representing the Tillsonburg Skating Club, the Dorchester skater debuted in Senior Women's, and easily won her division with a solid short program (51.70) and free skate (72.82) to score 124.52 total points.
"Actually there was no one else competing in it," she grinned. "I did skate well, there's just not a lot of seniors, not a lot of people get to that level. But I skated well at Sectionals - it was an improvement from my two other competitions this season. It had started very rough for me because I started training very late."
LaFleche scored 115 points at the Isabelle Henderson Memorial in September and 118 points at Octoberfest in Barrie.
"My short program, my jumps were clean. I skated very well, lost a few points in spins. So I was really happy with that. I would be really happy if I did that (51.70) at Challenge. My long program, there were a lot of mistakes, but there were also a lot of improvements from the last competition. I get better every competition, so that's all I can ask for."
She did exactly that again at the Skate Canada Challenge in Pierrefonds, Quebec, on Nov. 30, where she was eighth out of 33 skaters, scoring 51.01 in the short, with a much-improved 93.77 in her long program to achieve a Senior Women's personal best 144.78.
The 18-year-old had decided to move up to the top division after two seasons at the junior level (with a bronze medal at Sectionals in 2014 and eighth at nationals),
"I was very happy with it (8th)," said LaFleche, who was 16 at the time.
"Last year I got injured early in the season, so I was only skating an hour a day and it was kind of limiting what I could do. I didn't make it to Nationals last year and I took four or five months off. I actually wasn't going to skate again, but Penny (Jelsma) asked me to skate in the Tillsonburg Ice Show.
"And I missed it so much..." she smiled. "I realized how much I missed it and how much I do love it. That's kind of why I decided to compete another year."
It was a difficult in the early days, she admitted, mentally and physically. But she stuck with it.
"After a few months I kind of got over the frustration."
She said her conditioning going into the Skate Canada Challenge was at its peak.
"It's actually way better now. I had a really hard time getting through my long program the last two years, and I think it's because I was training so much. I was on the ice four hours a day, so I was always exhausted. So it was always hard to do run-throughs. Now that I've dialed it back a bit, I have way more energy."
Going into Challenge, she said her goal was Top 18, which would qualify her for Nationals.
"It's doable. As long as I skate how I have been in practice, I should make it. And I'd be so happy with that. That's basically my goal for the season - to make it to Nationals. I would be very excited."
LaFleche will be skating at the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships today. The event will be shown on TSN at 5:30 p.m. Friday and 1 p.m. Saturday.
Whatever her results on the national stage, however, with post-secondary school fast approaching, she knows this is her last season. LaFleche graduated from Grade 12 last June, but returned in the fall to upgrade courses and will be applying to universities.
"This is my last year of skating, so I wanted to finish out with Seniors. So it's more for fun than it is for success."
Rockefeller scores personal best
It seems like Keirghan Rockefeller, 13, has been in competitive figure skating almost half of her life.
Rockefeller has skated pairs and singles, but for the past couple of years the TSC skater has been focusing on women's.
"I thought I would be doing pairs for a while, then my partner quit," said Rockefeller. "I really had no interest in a different partner, so I just stuck with my singles after that."
It was a challenge doing both, she said, but pairs might have been a bit harder.
"When I was 7, my partner was doing different jumps than I was - higher level jumps - so that was kind of hard. I found getting used to it was really difficult."
But she believes skating both disciplines improved her skills - pairs helped her singles and singles helped her pairs.
"Both really, but pairs definitely did help my singles skating. I had to hold myself up and it made me stronger."
In 2013, at the age of 10, Rockefeller was 23rd in a Pre-Juvenile U11 division of 31 skaters in Niagara Falls, scoring 15.79. In 2014, she scored 26.52 to finish 2nd in the Juvenile Women U11 division in Sarnia. And in 2015, she moved up to Pre-Novice where she finished 21st (22.08/39.74/61.3) in Belle River.
"I was doing really good last year, then I was off for like six months," said Rockefeller, who returned in 2016 to the Pre-Novice division skating in the Summer Sizzle Invitational (Waterloo) in August, Isabelle Henderon (Paris) in September, and Octoberfest (Barrie) in October.
"It's getting better," she nodded.
On Nov. 19 in Komoka, Rockefeller had a personal best in her short program scoring 25.52.
She followed it with an excellent free program (39.45), finishing less than four points from an overall Top 10 with 64.97 total points.
"At the end I missed one of my jumps, so my long could have been better."
Rockefeller will continue to skate singles with the Tillsonburg Skating Club in 2017, and whether she stays in Pre-Novice or moves up to the Novice division will depend on jumps.
"It depends if I get a triple - any triple - and a double axel, then I'll move up."
Rusnak, Moyer compete at Sectionals
Tillsonburg Skating Club's Aalanna Ramona Rusnak and Mikaela Moyer gained experience competing in their first Western Ontario Sectional Championships in November.
It was a shorter than usual season for Rusnak, who skated well at Sectionals in Komoka, Nov. 11-13, in her first season at Juvenile Women. She finished 12th in the Juvenile U12 division with a score of 21.00.
"I took all summer off because I had an injury," said Rusnak. "Then I came back after the summer and it was harder to get back into things.
"I came back in September and there was a competition in October, but I knew I wasn't ready for that. So (Sectionals) was my first competition."
Before taking the summer off she had started a new program, and remembered it through the summer, but it would take more time to perfect. In other years she might have skated at Octoberfest in Barrie or the Isabelle Henderson Memorial in September, or maybe one of the summer events.
"Some of the girls I was competing against had already had three competitions before that, so they were a little bit more prepared. And they all did the summer skating. I think if I was skating in the summer I would have done better, for sure."
Fully recovered from injury, she felt comfortable going into Sectionals, not expecting a gold medal but expecting to do her best.
"I just wanted to try my best and go for it. It was like a fresh start, I knew I just had to try my best. It took the pressure off, I guess, but I was still a little nervous.
"I feel like I'll be better between now and January, with my skating. I'll feel more confident in my jumps. I just have to focus on the jumps that I have in my program," said Rusnak, not looking beyond Grimsby.
Rusnak went on to compete last weekend at the Charles Dover Memorial Invitational in Grimsby, Jan. 13-15, where she placed ninth in Juvenile Women U12, improving her overall score to 22.87.
MIKAELA MOYER
Mikaela Moyer, 12, won a gold medal at the Western Ontario Sectional Championships in Komoka, Nov. 11-13, with a score of 21.00 in her Pre-Juvenile Women U13 free-skate program.
"A little nerve-racking in the warmups," she said after her first Sectionals. "About halfway through I calmed down."
Moyer, who had learned a new program in July which included an axle-toe combination, double toe, double loop and double flip, competed at Summer Skate in Thornhill and Summer Sizzle in Waterloo (August), then the Isabelle Henderson Memorial (September) and Octoberfest. She scored a personal best at each competition (23.56 in Barrie), improving each time leading up to Sectionals.
In Grimsby last weekend Moyer won her Pre-Juvenile Women U13 division at the Charles Dover Memorial Invitational scoring 25.08, five full points ahead of second-place Hannah White from Burlington, who was seventh at Sectionals.