Eight Connaught skaters are heading to Quebec next week for the Skate Challenge Canada thanks to impressive showings at the recent B.C./Yukon Sectional Championships in Prince George.
In total, 11 athletes from the Richmond club’s training group have earned the opportunity to skate at the Dec. 3-7 competition in Pierrefonds which serves as a qualifier for the 2015 Canadian Championships.
“It’s basically double the size of qualifiers we have had in the past,” said Connaught Director of Skating Programs’ Keegan Murphy. “The top 18 skaters in novice, junior and senior will qualify for nationals and it’s very attainable for all our kids. The standard in B.C. is very high and to make it (to national) competitions is very tough.”
Some of the results by Connaught’s most seasoned skaters were hardly a surprise such as Mitchell Gordon capturing the senior men’s competition or Shawn Cuevas finishing second in the junior men’s (U19) division.
Danielle Gordon earned her ticket back east by placing fourth in junior women’s, while Elvie Carroll earned bronze in novice women’s. Jessica McHugh was right behind her in fifth.
What had coaches especially enthused were the placements in the younger age groups. They were thrilled with the pre-novice men’s event where Beres Clements and Basil Wang produced breakthrough performances to finish first and fourth respectively to secure spots on the provincial team. Clements (82.56) had an excellent short program and did just enough in his free program to hold of Killarney Skating Club’s Ehren Chang (82.55).
“There is a lot of strategizing by our coaching team,” explained Murphy. “We do a lot of looking at the competition across the province to see what they were or were not doing (in previous events), figuring out how we could beat them.
“All year long, Beres has been second or third and Basil fifth. We put all the pieces in the puzzle together and they trained hard, listening to everything we said. They performed awesome and got the results we knew could be there for them.”
Murphy was also thrilled to see Claudia Makhanko-Tang place fifth in Pre-Novice Ladies despite little training leading up to the event due to a serious back injury and a recent bout with mono.
All the results include:
Pre-Juvenile Ladies U11: Samantha Yeung - 3rd, Averyn Ngan - 9th, Michelle Wang - 13th, Catherine Yuen - 15th, Jocelyn Chui - 19th, Chantelle Wang - 20th, Vanessa Rong 24th.
Pre-Juvenile Men U11: Wesley Chiu - 4th, Vincent Liang - 5th.
Juvenile Ladies U11: Emily Ni - 2nd
Juvenile Ladies U14: Jamie Cheung - 13th, Wen Ding - 16th, Sophie Ho - 17th, Jennavieve Joa - 19th, Avia Dobres - 26th.
Juvenile Men: Wilson Leung - 3rd.
Pre-Novice Ladies U16: Danica Vangsgaard - 3rd, Claudia Makhanko-Tang - 5th, Caitlin Tai - 7th, Haleigha Bull - 8th, Madge Sheung - 14th, Megan Kan - 16th, Sarah Sutanto - 18th, Phoebe Yan - 25th, Mary Jo Yun - 26th.
Pre-Novice Men U16: Beres Clements - 1st, Basil Wang - 4th, Martin Yushko - 7th.
Novice Women U17: Elvie Carroll - 3rd, Jessica McHugh - 5th.
Junior Women U19: Danielle Gordon - 4th.
Junior Men U19: Shawn Cuevas - 2nd.
Senior Men: Mitchell Gordon - 1st.
