Olympic slot in Martinez’ sights
Michael Martinez will bid to qualify for his second Olympic stint at the Nebelhorn Trophy in Oberstdorf, Germany, on Sept. 27-30 with only six tickets available of 30 slots in the men’s singles figure skating event at the Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, next year.
Martinez, 20, qualified for his first Olympics by finishing seventh at Nebelhorn in 2013. The top four Nebelhorn finishers had previously qualified for the Sochi Games so the next six clinched the remaining spots with Martinez taking the third ticket of six. His route to Pyeongchang will go through Nebelhorn once more as he failed to make the cut-off at the World Championships in Helsinki last April. The first 20 skaters in Helsinki qualified for Pyeongchang with Martinez out of the circle at No. 24.
Now training in Lake Forest, California, Martinez said he’s ready to qualify all over again. He plans to leave for Oberstdorf on Sept. 23 with Ukrainian coach Slava Zahordnyuk to acclimatize to conditions early before plunging into competition. Martinez will use the new music he performed for the first time when he took the silver medal at the recent SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur. Choreographer Phillip Mills arranged the routine to the music of “O Futura” from German composer Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” in the short program and a blend of electric violinist Vanessa Mae’s “Tango de los Exilados” and “El Tango de Roxanne” from “Moulin Rouge” in freeskate.
“I’m confident of qualifying,” said Martinez during a brief visit to Manila after the SEA Games. “I’ve worked hard on my new program which I think is amazing. I’ve reduced my weight by 20 pounds so I’m able to execute my jumps and spins with less weight to carry. I’ve been very disciplined in what I eat. For breakfast, I take egg white for pure protein. For lunch, I take a small meal and for dinner, I take steak with very little salt. I run, do sauna and cardio exercises. I’m in the best shape of my life.”
Martinez said his back injury isn’t completely healed but the pain is more than tolerable. “I’ll need surgery to address the pain in between the L4 and L5, the two lowest vertebrae in the lumbar spine, but the recovery will take a year and a half so I’ve decided to just do therapy for the moment. It means a lot of icing and stretching before and after performing. Right now, my body is holding up. I won’t let the chance of competing in my second Olympics go by.”
Martinez said he was recently signed up by Visa to join the card company’s list of endorsers and is the subject of an Instagram takeover on the Olympic Internet channel. “I’m collaborating with the Olympic channel and it’s something I’m very interested in as I plan to be involved in cinematography and photography as a career after figure skating,” he said. “With Visa as one of my sponsors, I’m excited to meet up with Michael Phelps who’s the lead athlete in the Visa family.”
Martinez said he’s got a full schedule leading to the Winter Olympics on Feb. 9-25 next year. After Nebelhorn, he will compete at the Cup of Nice in France on Oct. 11-15, the Santa Claus Cup in Hungary on Dec. 4-10 and the Four Continents in Taipei on Jan. 22-27. Martinez said if he makes progress in perfecting the quad axel, he’ll introduce it at the World Championships in Milan on March 19-25.
“No one has ever done a quad axel,” he said. “It’s very high-risk. Skaters practice it using a harness. I’ve tried it without a harness and of course, I fell but it’s something I’m hoping to do someday. It’s in my pipeline of things to perform. I did my first triple axel in 2012 and my first quad toe loop at the SEA Games. The only way to get ahead in figure skating is to raise the degree of difficulty in my routine and that’s what I’m doing.”
Martinez said on a personal note, he has found a new sense of inner peace after finally meeting his longlost Japanese father Ichiro Osawa in Manila early this year. “I’d never met my father before,” he said. “I found him on Facebook and when I visited Manila early this year, we got together in BGC for about three hours. I was so happy to meet my father. I found out that in my Japanese ancestry, there was someone who participated in the first-ever Winter Olympics in luge. My father told me he wants to spend more time with me when I visit next and maybe, we could go fishing. I’m looking forward to that.”