Lacoste hurt by mistake
Disappointing 13th after short program
NICE, FRANCE – It’s certainly not the end of the world for Amélie Lacoste – or even the end of the worlds, yet – but the surroundings look distressingly familiar.
Feeling the pressure to finish in the top 10 at the World Figure Skating Championships, the 23-year-old Canadian champion from Delson messed up the major component of her short program Thursday – stepping out of the first half of a triple-triple loop combination – and finds herself 13th and facing an uphill fight in Saturday’s free skate.
While two Russians, including Thursday’s leader Alena Leonova, and three Japanese will dominate the final flight of skaters in the long program, Lacoste will skate 10th out of 24 competitors who survived the short to fight another day.
Leonova, 21, the 2009 world junior champion, finished fourth at last year’s world championships in Moscow and ninth at the Vancouver Olympics, but she’s had a mediocre 2011-12 season – up to now.
On Thursday, she skated one of the few clean, highenergy programs of the afternoon event.
Her score of 64.61 points was nearly two clear of second-place Kanako Murakami, the precocious 17-yearold from Japan, with Italy’s Carolina Kostner in third at 61.00.
Two-time world champ Mao Asada of Japan was surprisingly a further half-point back in fourth, after missing the triple Axel to start her program.
For Lacoste, it was supposed to be a safe, clean skate. It didn’t turn out that way.
Having already downgraded her difficulty level in consultation with Skate Canada – a triple Lutz was deemed too risky, an easier Salchow was subbed in – the loss of marks for the combination accounts for most of the difference between her current position and 10th.
Now, she needs to leapfrog three skaters, and make up 4.82 points.
As of Wednesday, she had no triple-triple combination planned for her long program. That may change. “We put the triple Sal in after Four Continents, because I missed the Lutz at nationals, and almost all year long,” said Lacoste, who last week admitted she “wanted a clean program and no pressure on the shoulders.”
So she landed the Salchow, but missed her combination.
“Usually I can get 6.8 for it (she received 3.2), so it hurts a lot,” she said.
Lacoste’s coach, Nathalie Martin, rolled her eyes in frustration when the skater stepped out of the triple loop.
“I wasn’t happy, for sure, because if she does the triple loop-double loop even, at least that’s the base mark – and she hasn’t missed it in two years,” Martin said.
“So I was thinking, ‘Oh, my God, what’s going to happen?’ But I was happy she kept her focus all through the program and I just said in my mind: ‘Don’t let the program go.’
“I was disappointed about the loop, because we talk a lot about that situation – if the first loop is a little bit wide, just keep going and double after. But in her mind, she wanted to do triple-triple.”
A second triple loop after the in-between step would have earned a deduction for repeating the same jump.
“Once she puts the other foot down ... we’re done. Too late,” said Martin.