READING, PA. — Canadian pairs champion Jessica Dubé is barely 20 years old. Her partner, Bryce Davison, is 21. But at the Skate America international Grand Prix this week, they feel like veterans.
This is their third year as senior skaters, but it seems there are multitudes of fresh faces in this first of six Grand Prix qualifying events. Many are graduates of the junior system and looking to get a foothold on the top rung with the Vancouver Olympics only three years away.
Just look at the men's event. Patrick Chan of Toronto is not yet 17, but he's in his second season of Grand Prix events. Kevin Reynolds, 17, of Vancouver is in his first.
Caroline Zhang, one of the U.S. hopes, is only 14, with a face like fawn, yet she's a cracker as a competitor and is already a silver medalist at the U.S. senior level. She is the world junior champion.
The men's junior world champion is here, too. American Stephen Carriere conquered both Chan and Reynolds at the world junior championships last year.
"When you look up, you feel as if you're at a Junior Grand Prix," said Michael Slipchuk, the director of high performance for Skate Canada. "I would call it a transition time. We've got some veterans and some young skaters, but that's what we want."
Slipchuk is hoping that by the time of the Vancouver Olympics, Canada will have won back its three berths for men. It slipped to two after the world championships last year. But with Chan consistently landing a triple Axel in training this year and with Canadian champion Jeff Buttle healthy and Chris Mabee figuring out how to home in on success, things are looking up, Slipchuk said. Reynolds will be one of the few men to try two quadruple jumps in the long program. Slipchuk said they're getting more consistent this year, and Reynolds has also been working on his presentation and body movement.
Slipchuk says he has no idea of the progress of former Canadian champion Emanuel Sandhu, who did not complete a skating seminar this past summer, but who can compete at the Canadian championships this year. He gets a bye because he finished in the top three last year, and he registered by the Oct. 1 deadline to declare his intention to attend.
Why is he not in any Grand Prix events this year? Slipchuk will say only that "It's a privilege and a responsibility to be on the national team." Skaters on the national team are expected to participate fully in team events, he added.
Slipchuk also has hopes that Canadian skaters will be ready this season. At the beginning of the season, no skater on the national team is behind in preparation. Dubé and Davison, who fought injury last year, have had no setbacks this season. Buttle has kept his back in fighting shape.
In the past few years, Canada has shown its greatest strength in ice dancing, but at Skate America, there are no Canadian teams entered. That's because there are only two couples on the national team. World silver medalists Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon have taken the year off. Chantal Lefebvre and Arseniy Markov have retired. And there have been a number of retirements and partner changes over the summer.
"We expected this [Canadian dancers missing from some Grand Prix events] because we have only two dance teams," he said. But all is not lost. Canada has a group of promising young teams in the wings. Vanessa Crone and Paul Poirier have improved by leaps and bounds this year. They have won two Junior Grand Prix events and secured a spot at the Junior Grand Prix Final, while topping the standings.
He's 15. She's 16. But they have been together a long time, and Canadian team leader Petra Burka says they have matured a great deal.
"I just love how promising they are," she said yesterday. They skate close together, are precise and neat with their feet. And they skate as one, something rare in a junior-level team. "It's like watching one unit."
They made some small errors in a Junior Grand Prix event in Romania early this year, but they are so familiar with each other that they masked the mistake and recovered from it easily, she said. "We've got a lot of good junior teams," she added.
Competing in the women's event will be Mira Leung of Vancouver, who finished 24th at the world championships last March while battling a heel injury.
The pairs competition has only seven entries, and many new faces, so Dubé and Davison should win, at least, the silver medal. Their toughest competition will come from former world pairs champions Pang Qing and Tong Jian, China's top-ranked pair this year, with Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo taking the year off.
The women's event will feature world champion Miki Ando of Japan, who is nursing a sore right shoulder, which she injured at the Japanese nationals last year. A month ago, at a skating competition, she fell on it hard and reaggravated it. Yesterday, she landed a triple Lutz-triple loop in practice. The youngsters will have some work to do to match that.
Skate Canada, the second Grand Prix event, will be next week in Quebec City.
