Earning spots for ‘ pecking order’ of plans
Deciding factors: National championship winners may get chance to dictate terms of participation during events at Sochi
They are skating here for national titles, but the best of them also have their eyes on a different prize.
One step beyond this is uncharted territory: the debut of an Olympic team event in Sochi that precedes the individual men’s, women’s, pairs and ice dancing disciplines.
It is an opportunity and a minefield, both.
So at this weekend’s Canadian Tire national skating championships, besides the Olympic berth itself, they are competing, as Patrick Chan puts it, for “pecking order.” If Chan wins his seventh consecutive Canadian championship, as he probably could do blindfolded, he can pretty much dictate the terms of his participation in the team event. Ditto defending Olympic dance champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, and the results could shed light on what happens in women’s and pairs, too.
“We’ve spoken as a team, spoken to ( Skate Canada high performance director) Mike Slipchuk to see what program I’m going to do, if I’m going to do both, or one — and if I do one, which one,” Chan said.
“There’s a pecking order, I guess, that depends on results here at nationals, as well, and who can make the first decision as to what program they’re going to do. Tessa and Scott, of course, are going to have the first decision on if they’re going to do both, or which one they’re going to do.”
The team event consists of short and long programs by each country’s best ( theoretically) entry in all four disciplines, with mid- course substitutions allowed in any two of the four. The problem, even for a nation with as many options as Canada — which has the largest number of skaters qualified ( 17) of any country — is how to win the team gold medal while also conserving the resources of probable medallists in the individual events.
“Internally, we have a pretty
good idea what our plan is,” Slipchuk said here Friday. “We have a few scenarios in play, but our general plan we are keeping close to our vest, because it’s a long season and we want to see how everyone’s competing — and also if we are in a position where we’re going to switch athletes between the short and the free, we want to make sure we put them in their best section.
“We’re also very cognizant of our athletes that are going for gold, and we don’t want to do anything that will impede that — and we also have to consider the schedule, because the team competition ends and the pairs starts two days later, and the men’s short is three days after the ( team) free skate.”
Team leaders have until 24 hours before each day’s competition to submit the names of its skaters. So, for instance, if Coquitlam’s Kevin Reynolds
looks like a good bet to skate a competitive short program, Canada could save Chan for the long, and Virtue and Moir could be spelled for either program by Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje, who are very close to medal quality in dance.
Kaetlyn Osmond, eighth in her worlds debut a year ago, is likely to have to skate both halves of the women’s team event because she is in a class by herself in Canada, as she proved again here Friday afternoon. But in pairs, the 2013 champions Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford and No. 2 team of Kirsten MooreTowers and Dylan Moscovitch are virtually interchangeable.
“There’s a lot of strategy. It’s a bit weird because it’s short ( program), then day off, then long. And then if I do the long, I only have three days until my actual competition,” Chan said. “So there’s options. I could do the
short and have more days inbetween ... but rest is the most important thing. Even though it’s a team event, it’s not as though I’m going to conserve my energy. It’s the Olympic Games; skating in the Olympic rink you’re going to give it your all, so it’s important to give yourself enough time to rest before the individual event.”
There’s little question the skaters regard their personal events as more important. Most call them their “real” events.
Figure skaters take a psychological beating over the course of their careers, so the chance to stand on a podium and be rewarded for all the grief they’ve faced alone, or with a partner, is No. 1
At the same time, Slipchuk said, “it’s a unique opportunity for a skater to be able to walk out of the Olympics with two gold medals, so they all want
to be a part of it. The positive is that everyone on our team wants to do it, and I don’t think every country is that way.”
Some think the team event should have been placed at the end of the Olympics, rather than starting the day before the opening ceremony.
“I think it would have been great to get the individual stuff done, and then come together and do this team thing. It would have been more enjoyable,” said four- time world champion Kurt Browning, who’ll be doing CBC commentary in Sochi.
“And also, if I’m Patrick, do I try two quads? Why do I go for it, when I know I have to win the real medal later on? Whereas if it’s at the end, I have nothing to save it for, and I can just go for everything. I guess the positive might be that you could be getting your nerves out of the way in the team event, and then you settle in and get that second chance in the real event. So you can argue it both ways.”
“That’s the positive that has come from a lot of athletes in our discussions,” Slipchuk said. “It’s a chance to get out on the Olympic venue, to do a program when you’re part of a team, and get a good lay of the land, how the rink feels in competition, the atmosphere, so when you step out on the ice on a competition day, it’s not an unknown.
“You want to draw the positives out of it — the negative, because of the size of our team, is that a lot of good athletes aren’t going to get a shot at it.”
The push- and- pull and strategizing do make for a fascinating conversation, though.
“Someone like Kevin Reynolds, this is a chance at an Olympic medal, so that’s cool,” Browning said. “I mean, I think you would protect your Tessa and Scott and your Patrick as best as you can, but when Patrick is going to be first or second in the short and the long, instead of Kevin who might be eighth or ninth or something, suddenly you’re not winning the gold medal for Canada.
“So it’s going to be a real juggle.”