Wesley Chiu made quite an impression at his first-ever Skate Canada Challenge.
The 11-year-old member of the Connaught Skate Club travelled to Pierrefonds, QC with modest expectations. Even though he captured gold at the B.C. Yukon Sectionals to earn his trip back east, Chiu was one of the youngest competitors in the Pre-Novice Men’s Division.
The goal of a top five finish still seemed within reach when Chiu was sitting ninth out of 42 skaters following the short program. Instead, the Grade 6 student at Richmond Christian put together the performance of his young life.
Chiu skated a near flawless long program to earn the top score (62.61) of all skaters and jump all the way into the silver medal position behind Alberta’s Brian Chiem.
“Wesley pulled off an absolutely huge long program,” said his proud coach Keegan Murphy. “Because they skate in reserve order, we didn’t know exactly how well he had done. We just sat there and watched him move up the standings, one by one, after the skaters in front of him had finished.”
Chiu’s technical ability is ahead of skaters his age and he showed Murphy in Quebec just how tough mentally he is as well.
“At the (BC/Yukon Sectionals) he had the lead going into the long program where this time he knew he had to make up ground so it was interesting to see how he would handle it,” added Murphy. “He kept his nerves in check and rose to the challenge big time. For an 11-year-old going up against skaters who were typically two to three years older than him, it was amazing to see.”
Chiu’s result was the best for a Connaught skater in Pre-Novice Men’s since Mitchell Gordon won the event back in 2010 on the eve of his 14th birthday.
Next for the promising young skater is moving up to the Novice Men’s level for the 2017 competitive season.
