Skaters prepare to take up Challenge
Regina event final step on road to Canadian championships
REGINA The 2014 Skate Canada Challenge is a dress rehearsal of sorts — for competitors and spectators alike.
“This is the one opportunity when local individuals will be able to see the live skating that they’re going to see on TV,” said Danielle Shaw, the executive director/event manager with Skate Canada Saskatchewan and the local organizing chair of the 2014 Skate Canada Challenge.
“A lot of people will watch the Canadian championships at home on TV because they won’t be travelling to Ottawa to see it. They’re going to see almost the same thing right here in Regina.”
The Skate Canada Challenge begins Wednesday and runs through Sunday, with more than 500 skaters expected to participate in the competition at Evraz Place, which is playing host to the event for the third straight year.
The Challenge features skaters in four levels (prenovice, novice, junior and senior) competing in four disciplines (men’s, women’s, pairs and ice dance). All of the competitors in Regina this week qualified for the Challenge through their region’s Skate Canada sectional championships.
The winners of the various pre-novice competitions this week will be crowned Canadian champions. However, those are the only titles that will be decided here.
“(The Challenge) is a Canadian qualifying event for the novice to senior level competitors,” Shaw said. “The top 18 (finishers in each competition at each level) from this event will go on to compete at the Canadian Tire national figure skating championships in January in Ottawa.”
The 2014 Canadian championships are set for Jan. 9-15 at Canadian Tire Centre in the nation’s capital. Shaw said the top 18 finishers in each event in Regina will be joined at the national competition by others who received byes based on their previous results, bringing the number in each event to 24.
That said, there are a number of skaters slated to participate in the Challenge who could have bypassed the event and gone straight to the Canadian championships.
The three senior women’s medallists from the 2013 Canadian championships — Kaetlyn Osmond (gold), Gabrielle Daleman (silver) and Alaine Chartrand (bronze) — are to compete here this week. So is Veronik Mallet, who finished fifth in 2013.
The senior men’s field will include 2013 senior men’s bronze medallist Andrei Rogozine, fifth-place finisher Liam Firus, Regina’s Garrett Gosselin (who was 10th at nationals in 2013) and three-time Canadian champion Emanuel Sandhu, who returned to competition last season after a lengthy absence.
Among the senior pairs scheduled to compete at the Challenge are 2013 Canadian bronze medallists Paige Lawrence and Rudi Swiegers, who hail from Saskatchewan.
“Because it’s their preOlympic qualification, a lot of skaters who are on the national team who received byes to the Canadian championships have opted to skate at this level because it’s one more competition vying for that Olympic spot,” Shaw said, referring to the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.
“For example, Paige and Rudi have a bye to Canadians because they placed third last year. But they’ve chosen to skate here, partly because it’s in a home community and partly because they want that extra competitive experience because they’ve got an opportunity at making the Olympic team.”