The goal for 2015 Canadian silver medalist Lubov Iliushechkina and Dylan Moscovitch‘s first World Championships is simply to enjoy the process. “I’m excited to perform one more time and that’s my goal — to perform and enjoy,” said Iliushechkina on today’s teleconference, a sentiment her partner wholeheartedly endorsed.
The pair noted that they’ve been continuing to refine their twist — an element, like side-by-side jumps, heavily reliant on timing and shared technique, presenting a challenge for any new pair, and no less so for one with their diverse set of backgrounds. “We both have our own sets of habits that are hard to break, and when you do something the same way over and over for years, it becomes very difficult to break those habits, and also to open your mind to a completely different way of thinking about the element,” said Moscovitch.
“I’m trying to take all the information, and work in this country and this kind of figure skating and kind of training,” said Iliushechkina of continuing to adapt to the Canadian system. “I’m trying to be as a sponge and to follow all advisors.” She’s found her experience representing Canada a deeply positive one overall: competing her first Canadian Championships at the Kingston rink where she won Grand Prix gold in 2010 offered “a feeling like I came to heaven.”
“We’ve been feeling a great amount of support from the public, the skating fans,” said Moscovitch. “We really feel like they’re behind us and I guess our story reached a lot of people, and they connected with it and connected with us, and we’re very grateful for that. The amount of people that have stepped up to help us financially survive the season is incredible — we’re very, very appreciative.”
For newly minted Canadian champions Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje, Worlds is an opportunity to celebrate a successful — currently undefeated — season more than it is cause for additional pressure. “Ultimately our job is the same and we’re so trained and we’ve really improved from the start of the season to the end,” said Weaver. “I think that’s what we need to focus on and let the competition happen just as it always does, but make sure we do our job.”
That job has meant leaving no stone unturned, including a special focus on sharpening the short dance’s technical elements, rechoreographing the free dance’s ending and reviewing new free dance costume options — with Poje sporting his during today’s call. “Some people have noted that the costumes have changed with the seasons,” said Weaver. “In the beginning I had pink and Andrew had brown, and then it went to fall colors and a bit more winter with Andrew’s blue, and now we’re going a little bit more into the spring transition. If these work, then we’ll have reflected all the seasons.”
The team will be competing in Shanghai with their competitive ‘twins’ in Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford — the two teams having taken gold at all the same season events since Skate Canada International — as well as three of the couples they train alongside at the Detroit Skating Club. “It makes it feel like it’s a home environment,” said Poje. “We’ve been through the same training regime because we see them day in and day out, so we can rely on them and if we feel a little off, we’ve been there in practice, and we can lean on them if we need to or we can bring them up if they need it.”
Weaver noted an affinity between their free dance’s literal Four Seasons theme and the development of their career. “The seasons are cyclical — you start how you end and you end how you start, and it’s very much a circle and that’s how we feel,” she said. “We feel like we’re at the place right now where we’re loving what we do, we’re enjoying our performance, and that’s to me how it all started. It seems like it’s been a blink of an eye since we’ve begun, but now we’re here.”
Today’s Inside Edge breaks the news of one new American dance partnership. Having split earlier this year from partner Alexandra Aldridge, two-time U.S. junior champion and World Junior bronze medalist and 2014 Four Continents bronze medalist Daniel Eaton has teamed up with Danielle Thomas, who with Alexander Martin picked up novice pewter at the 2014 U.S. Championships. Aldridge and Eaton placed sixth at this year’s national championships, while Thomas and Martin finished eleventh in their junior debut. The duo (pictured together here) will train at Arctic Edge in Canton, where Aldridge and Eaton passed their final season, while both teams had previously trained together at the Detroit Skating Club.
The Inside Edge also offered an update on Zack Sidhu‘s recovery from elbow surgery on March 4, with the prognosis good and unlikely to impact Calalang and Sidhu‘s summer competition plans.
Steve Buffery of the Toronto Sun provides the first report from Duhamel and Radford’s teleconference: Canadian pairs champs feeling good heading into worlds.
Today’s U.S. teleconference sessions included pairs champions Alexa Scimeca and Chris Knierim, with available audio recording possibly pending. The two noted their aim of finishing in the top six at the World Championships and report few changes to their programs.