Practice, it's often been said, makes perfect.
But while Joannie Rochette was pretty close to that in front of a lot of eyes at HomeSense Skate Canada International on Saturday night, the little charmer from Ile-Dupas, Que., would be the first to say her pre-game skate, so to speak, had almost nothing to do with it.
In the minutes after crushing the field at Scotiabank Place for her second Skate Canada gold in three years, Rochette admitted practice earlier in the day went so poorly, she cut it short and headed back to her hotel room.
Then she fell back into the most familiar of routines.
"I just called my boyfriend (short-track speed skater Francois-Louis Tremblay) and talked about some things," said Rochette, 22. "I just did everything I do on a normal day. If I had a so-so practice at home (in Montreal), I'd go home and put it behind me and not think about it or talk about it. That's exactly what I did. I just moved on, had a quiet dinner and talked with my roommate (pairs skater Mylene Brodeur). We had a fun time together."
All of it seemed to work. By the time Rochette walked by the media room listening to Bon Jovi's Bed of Roses, she'd laid to bed all the bad feelings from earlier in the day. Then she went on and shot the lights out on the ice, landing seven triple jumps in a dazzling display that turned the competition into a rout.
After Rochette was done, she'd racked up an astonishing overall score of 188.89 points, more than 25 better than silver-medal winner Fumie Suguri of Japan. Alissa Czisny of the U.S. (157.92) held off reigning world silver medallist Carolina Kostner of Italy (152.76) for the bronze.
All of this on the backs of a free program Rochette admitted she wanted to dump shortly after she started working with it. Now that thought has done a complete 180.
" I think it really paid off tonight," she said. "I'm telling you, this program this summer, I couldn't get through it. I was dead at the third jump because I didn't have much crosscuts and I didn't see how it was going to work. The first week, I said 'I think we have to change.' It was real different for me to say you only have some round crosscuts and connecting steps, and then you have to jump.
"You have to gain speed with it and just that for me was harder. The work we did on the components really paid off."
While Rochette's performance drew raves all around — not to mention a standing ovation — she wasn't ready to declare it her best performance yet. But clearly, the message has been sent: The is a young woman primed and ready to win her first world championships medal in Los Angeles in March.
"I think this is a goal this season," said Rochette, who finished a career-best fifth at the 2008 worlds in Sweden. "But we don't think of podium specifically. We just talk about building my confidence and improving my components. I want to have the two same performances I had this week. Same thing, same calmness with all my elements and skating it perfectly it worlds.
"That's all I'm asking from myself and then the results will take care of themselves. If it comes, it comes, and I will do everything I can to get on that podium."
That quest, it must be said, is officially off to a rather rousing start.
Showing posts with label Gothenburg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gothenburg. Show all posts
Saturday, November 1, 2008
A Sharp-Dressed Gang
The streets of Ottawa were awash with some rather, um, interesting sights as I headed home from Scotiabank Place on Friday night.
Halloween, of course, was the annual call to arms for ghosts and goblins (and a policeman or two, no doubt) to make their appearance once more. They were pretty much everywhere you turned and if you didn't see something, well, just peek around the next corner.
But if you've been to a figure skating competition or two, you know ice dancers have it over just about anyone when it comes to costumes. Flamboyant doesn't even begin to describe some of the garb but mostly, the idea is to match the outfit to the music. And let's face it, we've run quite the gamut when it comes to our tastes in that area over the years.
Take the Canadian duo of Vanessa Crone and Paul Poirier, for example, who broke out a snappy ragtime theme for Saturday morning's original dance (the theme for this season is the Charleston or Foxtrot) at HomeSense Skate Canada International. Crone's attire included a bold plaid skirt and something you rarely see on a skater (at least a competitive one) — a hat.
"This is actually my first year doing that," said Crone, 18, of Aurora, Ont. "At the beginning of the year, we had a different hat which was too big, so we had to go to a little hat. It's a little hard sometimes but it's not much different."
Added the Ottawa-born Poirier, 16: "We've practised with the hat lots of times. We've been doing it in practice so we know exactly what it's going to feel like when we skate in a competition."
And if you're wondering, no, Crone hasn't lost the hat when it counts. A clear strap holds it snugly in the place (oh, those tricky ice dancers).
But Crone and Poirier are about more than just fancy duds. This is an ice dance team clearly on the rise. They were second at the world junior championships in Sofia, Bulgaria, last season and also came within a hair of qualifying for THE worlds in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Clearly, that's the young couple's goal this season. And with world silver medallists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir forced to withdraw from this weekend's proceedings because of injury, it's a great opportunity for Crone and Poirier to bask in the spotlight.
"There's definitely a little bit more pressure but the Canadian crowd is amazing," said Crone. "Once you get onto the ice and you hear them, everything goes away and you don't think about anything. Then we're just happy to be representing our country."
There's more than just a chance they'll do the red maple leaf proud before this event ends. While Crone and Poirier had one stumble today and slipped a spot to fifth, the silver and bronze-medal spots are wide open behind favoured Meryl Davis and Charlie White of the U.S., who have totalled 90.65 points through the first two phases of the competition.
Behind them, though, it's a logjam. France's Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat currently stand second (81.27), but the margin is slim over Americans Kimberly Navarro and Brent Bommentre (80.35), Kristina Gorshkova and Vitali Butikov of Russia (80.32) and Crone and Poirier (80.24).
Meaning we're in for some free dance finale here on Sunday.
Or, dare we say it, spook-tacular?
Halloween, of course, was the annual call to arms for ghosts and goblins (and a policeman or two, no doubt) to make their appearance once more. They were pretty much everywhere you turned and if you didn't see something, well, just peek around the next corner.
But if you've been to a figure skating competition or two, you know ice dancers have it over just about anyone when it comes to costumes. Flamboyant doesn't even begin to describe some of the garb but mostly, the idea is to match the outfit to the music. And let's face it, we've run quite the gamut when it comes to our tastes in that area over the years.
Take the Canadian duo of Vanessa Crone and Paul Poirier, for example, who broke out a snappy ragtime theme for Saturday morning's original dance (the theme for this season is the Charleston or Foxtrot) at HomeSense Skate Canada International. Crone's attire included a bold plaid skirt and something you rarely see on a skater (at least a competitive one) — a hat.
"This is actually my first year doing that," said Crone, 18, of Aurora, Ont. "At the beginning of the year, we had a different hat which was too big, so we had to go to a little hat. It's a little hard sometimes but it's not much different."
Added the Ottawa-born Poirier, 16: "We've practised with the hat lots of times. We've been doing it in practice so we know exactly what it's going to feel like when we skate in a competition."
And if you're wondering, no, Crone hasn't lost the hat when it counts. A clear strap holds it snugly in the place (oh, those tricky ice dancers).
But Crone and Poirier are about more than just fancy duds. This is an ice dance team clearly on the rise. They were second at the world junior championships in Sofia, Bulgaria, last season and also came within a hair of qualifying for THE worlds in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Clearly, that's the young couple's goal this season. And with world silver medallists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir forced to withdraw from this weekend's proceedings because of injury, it's a great opportunity for Crone and Poirier to bask in the spotlight.
"There's definitely a little bit more pressure but the Canadian crowd is amazing," said Crone. "Once you get onto the ice and you hear them, everything goes away and you don't think about anything. Then we're just happy to be representing our country."
There's more than just a chance they'll do the red maple leaf proud before this event ends. While Crone and Poirier had one stumble today and slipped a spot to fifth, the silver and bronze-medal spots are wide open behind favoured Meryl Davis and Charlie White of the U.S., who have totalled 90.65 points through the first two phases of the competition.
Behind them, though, it's a logjam. France's Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat currently stand second (81.27), but the margin is slim over Americans Kimberly Navarro and Brent Bommentre (80.35), Kristina Gorshkova and Vitali Butikov of Russia (80.32) and Crone and Poirier (80.24).
Meaning we're in for some free dance finale here on Sunday.
Or, dare we say it, spook-tacular?
Friday, October 31, 2008
The Numbers Don't Lie
You spend hours convincing yourself that all the hard work is paying off. That you are, indeed, better than you were the day before.
But still, you need the extra something that puts it all in real perspective for you. It's called validation and in figure skating, at least, the ultimate example of that lies on the scoresheet.
Consider Joannie Rochette fully validated, at least for this day.
The four-time Canadian champion from Ile-Dupas, Que., has never been better in a short program than she was Friday afternoon at HomeSense Skate Canada International. The numbers on the scoreboard at Scotiabank Place didn't lie: 64.74 points, an impressive 4.7 better than her previous high (at the 2008 Four Continents Championship in Korea).
That put Rochette on top of the heap heading in Saturday's free skate final, nearly seven points ahead of Japan's Fumie Suguri.
"I can't explain how I'm feeling," said Rochette, who has spoken at length about the gains she's made since the world championships last March in Gothenburg, Sweden, where she placed a career-best fifth. "It's just different and I hope I can keep it the rest of the season."
Then the analytical side of this introspective young woman took over.
"My first goal tonight was to improve my program component score, my artistic mark," she said. "We achieved that (28.04 points). I think my best before was 25, 26.
"I'm really happy the judges saw the difference in me."
While it's just the beginning of the long road to the 2009 worlds in Los Angeles — not to mention the Vancouver Olympics a year later — Rochette admitted "it's really important to come to the first competition of the year and make an impact and give a new look to yourself, and I think we achieved that."
In the background, Rochette's coach, Manon Perron, couldn't stop smiling as she gave her own nod of approval. But we've all been there — that's the kind of support we all crave and need from the people around us who matter the most.
In this sport, though, there's another group of people whose opinion happens to count for more than anybody else's.
"I was happy with the score and I can say 'mission accomplished,' " said Rochette. "It's one thing if people around you tell you that you are better but it's another to see it reflected in the mark. We're just so, so happy with that."
But still, you need the extra something that puts it all in real perspective for you. It's called validation and in figure skating, at least, the ultimate example of that lies on the scoresheet.
Consider Joannie Rochette fully validated, at least for this day.
The four-time Canadian champion from Ile-Dupas, Que., has never been better in a short program than she was Friday afternoon at HomeSense Skate Canada International. The numbers on the scoreboard at Scotiabank Place didn't lie: 64.74 points, an impressive 4.7 better than her previous high (at the 2008 Four Continents Championship in Korea).
That put Rochette on top of the heap heading in Saturday's free skate final, nearly seven points ahead of Japan's Fumie Suguri.
"I can't explain how I'm feeling," said Rochette, who has spoken at length about the gains she's made since the world championships last March in Gothenburg, Sweden, where she placed a career-best fifth. "It's just different and I hope I can keep it the rest of the season."
Then the analytical side of this introspective young woman took over.
"My first goal tonight was to improve my program component score, my artistic mark," she said. "We achieved that (28.04 points). I think my best before was 25, 26.
"I'm really happy the judges saw the difference in me."
While it's just the beginning of the long road to the 2009 worlds in Los Angeles — not to mention the Vancouver Olympics a year later — Rochette admitted "it's really important to come to the first competition of the year and make an impact and give a new look to yourself, and I think we achieved that."
In the background, Rochette's coach, Manon Perron, couldn't stop smiling as she gave her own nod of approval. But we've all been there — that's the kind of support we all crave and need from the people around us who matter the most.
In this sport, though, there's another group of people whose opinion happens to count for more than anybody else's.
"I was happy with the score and I can say 'mission accomplished,' " said Rochette. "It's one thing if people around you tell you that you are better but it's another to see it reflected in the mark. We're just so, so happy with that."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
