Pirouetting toward Olympic dreams

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This article was published 09/03/2011 (5551 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A young St. Eustache girl has double-jumped her way to a provincial championship.

Dominique Bergeron, 9, took home a gold medal from the 2011 Manitoba Open Free Skate Competition in the Pre-novice Women’s free program last month.

The competition took place in Neepawa on Feb. 18 to 20, and Bergeron, one of the youngest skaters in her class, took top honours with a score of 36.58 — 4.42 points over second-place skater Darian Compton.

Bergeron’s mother, Gisele Sutherland, a skating coach for 30 years, said it was a significant victory for her daughter, who was competing against 24 other skaters aged 10 to 16.

“She had a very strong skate and it was a huge accomplishment for her,” Sutherland said. “Finishing almost 4-and -a-half points above the second place skater is a big win.”

Further evidence of Bergeron’s skating prowess is how quickly she has moved up on the skating circuit and by her dedication to the sport, her mother said.

“The first time she competed was in 2007 in a little regional competition,” Sutherland explained. “ Since then she has spent three summers in Barrie, Ont., training and she has moved up very quickly.”

In the four years Bergeron has been competing, she has completed all of her regional-level testing, moving from pre-preliminary, preliminary, junior bronze, and senior bronze, before crossing over into pre-juvenile, juvenile and then pre-novice.

“She went through all these levels in less than three years and this is very uncommon,” Sutherland said.

“She is probably one of the youngest skaters in this province to ever achieve her pre-novice status and she passed the test as an eight year old.”

Sutherland said her daughter passed juvenile and pre-novice tests within two weeks of each other, and three double jumps need to be achieved at the pre-novice level.

For the young Bergeron, figure skating is something she looks forward to every day.

“I love to figure skate,” she said. “I love it because you get to glide across the ice and jump.”
She said she is hoping to take her skating as far as possible.

“When I get older I want to go to some really big competitions and eventually the Olympics,” she said.

prescott.james@canstarnews.com