Brendan Kerry prepares for his free skate at the Asian Winter Games watched on by coach Tammy Gambill. The Asian Winter Games in Sapporo have proven to be a happy hunting ground for Australia’s best figure skaters Brendan Kerry and Kailani Craine.
Kerry, who is now firmly established as one of the world’s top men’s figure skaters, landed three perfect quad jumps throughout his Sapporo campaign – two of which were in the free program to earn personal best scores in all phases of the event and a total of 237.37 points.
The 22-year-old Sochi Olympian has used the Asian Winter Games as a stepping stone for next month’s World Figure Skating Championships in Helsinki, Finalnd where he will aim to qualify Australia for the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games.
Despite performing well in Friday’s short program Kerry admitted to being nervous in the free.
“This is my first program in competition successfully landing two different quads so that was pretty awesome but I feel it was a bit sloppy and I was disappointed with my mindset going into it, (I was) self-doubting a lot,” Kerry said.
“Doing these back to back events it’s a huge drop off in training. I go from having as much ice as I want to being limited to one practice a day. I feel as though doing quality elements is a strength of mine but my stamina is on the low end so when you take the training schedules away it’s pretty hard to maintain that,” he said.
Having successfully competed at the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships and now Asian Winter Games, Kerry is confident his routine can secure Australia a start in the men’s event at next year’s Olympics.
"I saw my choreographer about a month ago and we made some changes, so last week was a good simulation and this week was a chance to test things out and figure out what we need to change, so it should be good going into Worlds,” he said.
The men’s event was won by Japan’s Shoma Uno, with Boyang Jin (China) in second and team mate Han Yan in third.
Kailani Craine continued her good Asian Winter Games form, producing a strong routine in the women’s free program at Sapporo’s Makomanai Indoor Skating Rink.
Encouraged by her personal best result in the short program, Craine gave another competitive performance in the free program to finish in fifth position overall.
“Still a lot of work to do,” Craine said. “It wasn’t a personal best but definitely it was twenty points better than last week (at Four Continents).”
“I was happy about being able to do a lot better than last week and stay physically and mentally strong.
“I don’t think I delivered a really good performance tonight but once again I was really focused on each element, I really do need to work on the performance factor,” she said.
“Obviously still a lot of work to do before Worlds but I think now I’m on the right pathway.”
“Top 17 is the ultimate goal but I really want to show everyone what my potential is and what I can do every single day in training because I think that’s the most frustrating part that sometimes it doesn’t always work out.
In the pair’s competition, Matthew Dodds and Paris Stephens had their final Asian Winter Games outing in the free program with a total score of 91.90, which ranked them seventh.
The pair were disappointed with their short program and in Saturday’s free program they were out to prove they could deliver a polished performance.
“We wanted to get the twist done,” Stephens said. “Being able to show that I can do the twist was important because I missed that yesterday so that was good,” she said.
While they were happy with the performance Dodds admitted they had more to give.
“We would have hoped for a little bit higher, I think we were missing a couple of levels in some of our elements so even though everything happened it wasn’t top quality for us,” Dodds said.
Kerry, who is now firmly established as one of the world’s top men’s figure skaters, landed three perfect quad jumps throughout his Sapporo campaign – two of which were in the free program to earn personal best scores in all phases of the event and a total of 237.37 points.
The 22-year-old Sochi Olympian has used the Asian Winter Games as a stepping stone for next month’s World Figure Skating Championships in Helsinki, Finalnd where he will aim to qualify Australia for the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games.
Despite performing well in Friday’s short program Kerry admitted to being nervous in the free.
“This is my first program in competition successfully landing two different quads so that was pretty awesome but I feel it was a bit sloppy and I was disappointed with my mindset going into it, (I was) self-doubting a lot,” Kerry said.
“Doing these back to back events it’s a huge drop off in training. I go from having as much ice as I want to being limited to one practice a day. I feel as though doing quality elements is a strength of mine but my stamina is on the low end so when you take the training schedules away it’s pretty hard to maintain that,” he said.
Having successfully competed at the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships and now Asian Winter Games, Kerry is confident his routine can secure Australia a start in the men’s event at next year’s Olympics.
"I saw my choreographer about a month ago and we made some changes, so last week was a good simulation and this week was a chance to test things out and figure out what we need to change, so it should be good going into Worlds,” he said.
The men’s event was won by Japan’s Shoma Uno, with Boyang Jin (China) in second and team mate Han Yan in third.
Kailani Craine continued her good Asian Winter Games form, producing a strong routine in the women’s free program at Sapporo’s Makomanai Indoor Skating Rink.
Encouraged by her personal best result in the short program, Craine gave another competitive performance in the free program to finish in fifth position overall.
“Still a lot of work to do,” Craine said. “It wasn’t a personal best but definitely it was twenty points better than last week (at Four Continents).”
“I was happy about being able to do a lot better than last week and stay physically and mentally strong.
“I don’t think I delivered a really good performance tonight but once again I was really focused on each element, I really do need to work on the performance factor,” she said.
“Obviously still a lot of work to do before Worlds but I think now I’m on the right pathway.”
“Top 17 is the ultimate goal but I really want to show everyone what my potential is and what I can do every single day in training because I think that’s the most frustrating part that sometimes it doesn’t always work out.
In the pair’s competition, Matthew Dodds and Paris Stephens had their final Asian Winter Games outing in the free program with a total score of 91.90, which ranked them seventh.
The pair were disappointed with their short program and in Saturday’s free program they were out to prove they could deliver a polished performance.
“We wanted to get the twist done,” Stephens said. “Being able to show that I can do the twist was important because I missed that yesterday so that was good,” she said.
While they were happy with the performance Dodds admitted they had more to give.
“We would have hoped for a little bit higher, I think we were missing a couple of levels in some of our elements so even though everything happened it wasn’t top quality for us,” Dodds said.
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