Keegan Messing’s silver at Skate Canada was his first Grand Prix medal and one of three picked up by Canada’s next wave in Laval,
Canada’s heir apparent to Chan earns first Grand Prix medal with a well-deserved silver
LAVAL, QUE.— Canada’s newest figure skating star loves to ham it up for the crowd. He has skated atop an Alaskan iceberg. And he’s aiming to be the first man to land a quadruple Axel in competition.
Keegan Messing captured silver in men’s singles at Skate Canada International on Saturday, climbing the medal podium for the first time at a Grand Prix event. After his entertaining program to a Charlie Chaplin medley — complete with the spinning of an invisible walking stick — the quirky 26-year-old talked about his new role in the spotlight.
“I don’t know how I feel about that yet, except for the fact that I’m happy, especially since it’s the first real competition of the year and I put out two good performances,” Messing said. “I’m really happy on how things are turning out, I’m excited to see how it keeps unfolding.
“These first couple of pages have been fun. Let’s see how the whole book is.”
Messing, who led after Friday’s short program, scored 265.17 points. Olympic silver medallist Shoma Uno of Japan rebounded from a disastrous short program to win gold with 277.25. Cha JunHwan, a 17-year-old from South Korea who trains in Toronto with Brian Orser, took bronze with 254.77.
Messing’s medal was one of three for Canada. Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro won pairs bronze, while Piper Gilles of Toronto and Paul Poirier of Unionville captured ice dance bronze, roaring back from their sixth place in the short dance.
The five-foot-four Messing was a respectable 12th in his Olympic debut in South Korea, just four spots behind three-time world champion Patrick Chan. Chan retired after the Games, and the shifted skating landscape has shone the spotlight squarely on Messing.
He is clearly comfortable there. With a minute to go in his four-minute free program, the Bell Place crowd was toetapping and clapping along.
“That program just has so much opportunity for character to come out and it is so much to do in front of a big crowd like this,” said Messing, clutching his lucky cowboy hat in one hand — the hat is a nod to both Alberta and Alaska. “It just has so much energy, it’s so much fun and it’s just wonderful.”
Messing is a far different skater from Chan, a ball of energy to Chan’s elegance and power.
Normally a dependable jumper, he landed just one of his planned three quads on Saturday. Over the summer, video emerged of Messing landing a quadruple Axel while in a harness, which resembles a huge fishing pole.
“I would love to have my name on it,” Messing said. “We were working on it throughout the spring but we backed off it a little bit just because the risk of injury is pretty high for such a big jump, and coming into the Grand Prix season we felt it was safer to wait for the season to end and then go ahead and try some more of them.”
The quad Axel, compared to the other quads, is actually 4 1⁄2 revolutions.
“In a harness, they feel like any other quad. I do feel like it is possible for a quad Axel to be landed,” Messing said.
Messing has dual citizenship because his mom Sally was born in Edmonton, while his grandfather was from Newfoundland. Messing grew up in Girdwood, an Alaskan resort town just south of Anchorage where he now lives. So last month, Messing paddled out with an adventure guide and climbed atop a glacier to skate.
“We found one that was for the most part very safe, because they can be very unstable,” he said. “It was just fun to get on it with my Olympic pair of skates.”
Nam Nguyen of Toronto, meanwhile, landed both of his quads and finished a strong fifth.
“I’m really stoked to put out two solid performances this week,” the 20-yearold said.
Nguyen was fifth at the world championships in 2015, but the years since have been full of frustration. He switched coaches numerous times. He had to adjust to an enormous growth spurt.
Skating to a Pink Floyd medley, MooreTowers, from St. Catharines, Ont., and Marinaro, from Sarnia, Ont., scored 200.93 points, narrowly missing out on pairs silver.
Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres of France scored a personal best 147.30 in their short program to win gold with 221.81.
Americans Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue won the ice dance with 200.76 points. Russians Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov took the silver (195.17), while Gilles and Poirier scored 186.97 for third.