Winnipeg pair erases all doubt

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/11/2024 (281 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Friday proved to be a day full of smiles for Winnipeg’s most skilled figure skaters at Skate Canada Challenge, the national championships qualifier unfolding this week at Seven Oaks Arena.

First, Ava Kemp and Yohnatan Elizarov knocked off any lingering rust in their finale to take the junior pair title after a nine-month absence from competition.

With an assist from Freddie Mercury, the reigning Canadian junior champions were excited to be, and to show, they are back in the game after Kemp’s extended recovery from injury.

Meanwhile, fellow Winnipegger and junior men’s competitor David Howes, 17, is in medal contention after ranking fourth in his short program opener. With the four top-scoring men separated by fewer than four points, it will be a fight to the finish in the free skate on Saturday afternoon.

“It’s exactly what I’ve been doing in training, so I’m happy to have been able to put that out in a national competition,” said Howes, who now trains in Richmond, B.C.

Skating to Everybody Wants to Rule the World, the 2023 Canadian novice men’s champion garnered bonus points for the quality of his jumps, spins and footwork save for his triple flip jump which was judged to be a smidge short of rotation.

“I really love (the music) and Joey Russell, who did the choreography, did a really fantastic job,” said Howes, noting it took him a while to warm up to the piece after his coach suggested it.

A year ago as a rookie in the junior ranks, Howes earned the bronze medal at this event, and then finished fourth at the 2024 national championship.

Six hours before Howes stepped on the ice, Kemp and Elizarov debuted their new long program set to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. Even before their choreographer suggested it, that music had piqued Kemp’s interest and she wondered if it was something worth considering.

“We were wanting to do something different than our long program last year because it was kinda super serious,” said Elizarov. “We wanted the long to be a little more fun, a bit more entertaining so that’s the goal.”

The couple garnered a total score of 141.26 — 10 points beyond the second-place team from Quebec, but still 27 points below their personal best.

They will ramp up the technical difficulty of their long program over the next six weeks — turning the throw double-jumps and individual double salchows they performed here into triples. With that, their scores should rise dramatically.

“The last couple of months, it’s just been a really slow build, slowly adding elements back in. We’re pretty much training all the elements in practice,” said Kemp.

“We’re still kind of building on the long program. It’s something very different from what we’ve ever done. We’re starting to get more comfortable with it, and we’ll see where it goes.”

Asked to look ahead to the Canadian championships in Laval, Que., in mid-January, Elizarov needed only one word to describe their goal there.

“Winning,” he said emphatically.

Kemp added, “We want to show we have made improvements even with the injury , not just on the elements but other things, too.”

In Laval, Kemp and Elizarov are determined to prove they deserve a third consecutive trip to the 2025 world junior championships in Hungary in February. They ranked sixth at the global meet the past two seasons.

First, however, the pair, who have trained in Toronto this past year, will spend the weekend enjoying time at home with family and friends. Come Monday, Elizarov’s 21st birthday, they’ll be back on the ice.

In all, 150 junior- and senior-level figure skaters from across Canada are competing this week at Seven Oaks Arena. The event concludes Sunday afternoon with the senior women’s final.

Admission to all Challenge events is free. The competition is live-streamed at skatecanada.ca