READY TO TAKE THE LEAP
High expectations for Prescott skater
Alaine Chartrand still has a couple of months before she leaves her teen years behind, so she’s not old by any stretch of the imagination.
Neither, however, is she a 15-year-old who is just happy to be on the ice at the senior Canadian figure skating championships.
“In my first senior nationals, I wasn’t really looking to get a world (championship) spot. I didn’t have that capability, so it was a different mindset. I just wanted to do my best and see where I would finish,” says Chartrand, a Prescott resident who represents the Nepean Skating Club, on the eve of her fifth appearance in the senior women’s division of the competition that starts Friday in Halifax.
“Now you know you’re one of the best and there’s a world spot on the line. I’m not looking to place, I’m looking to win.
“This year, I’m looking at it like it’s going to be a lot of fun. I’m going to enjoy myself. That’s when I skate the best.”
After placing ninth in her first senior women’s national championship in 2012, Chartrand finished a surprising third in 2013, a disappointing fifth in 2014 and a satisfying second last year at Kingston, where she qualified for the world championships for the first time. She placed 11th in Shanghai.
Canada will again have two in women’s singles at Boston in late March and early April, but she faces some tough competition in two former Canadian champions: Gabrielle Daleman (2015) of Newmarket, Ont. and Kaetlyn Osmond (2013-14) of Sherwood Park, Alta., who missed almost all of last season because of injury.
Top two is Chartrand’s goal, “because that’s how many spots we have.”
Chartrand has changed her short program and free skate for this season to show something different to spectators and judges.
Results from pre-holiday competitions have been mixed. She ranked second in the short program, fifth in the free skate and fourth overall in the Nebelhorn Trophy event in Germany.
In the Rostelecom Cup at Moscow, where a year ago she earned her first Grand Prix medal, a bronze, she established a personal best for points in the short program, but was seventh in free skate and again fourth overall.
In Skate America at Milwaukee, she was sixth after the short program, but faltered to 12th in the free skate and 12th overall.
Besides changing the routines and switching to music soundtracks from Pina, a 2011 German documentary, and Gone from the Wind, Chartrand has added a triple-Axel to her free skate. It’s difficult, but it had to be done.
“I wanted to put it out there. That’s what the top in the world are going to do and looking toward the (2018) Olympics, which is my ultimate goal, that’s what you’re going to need.
Fifteen skaters connected to the national capital region will skate in Halifax. The novice and junior division champions will be crowned between Tuesday and Thursday, with senior skaters in the spotlight on Friday and Saturday.
The skaters from Eastern Ontario and West Quebec include: Seniors: Alaine Chartrand, Prescott and Nepean Skating Club; Samuel Angers, Gatineau. Juniors: Ottawa- and Kingstonborn Melinda and Andrew Meng (dance); Joseph Phan (singles), Aylmer; Nepean’s Josh Allen (singles); Minto Skating Club’s Audrey Croteau-Villeneuve and Jeff Hough (dance), Alex Leak (pairs with Sarah-Jade Latulippe), Alexis Dion, Christopher Reekie and Cameron Hines (singles). Novices: Hawkesbury’s Hannah Dawson (singles and pairs with Quebecer Daniel Villeneuve); Nepean’s Talia Rancourt and Alex Gunther (dance); and Prescott’s Matthew Markell (singles).