Harley and Katia with their silver medals. Picture: David Barden Figure Skating duo Harley Windsor and Ekaterina ‘Katia’ Alexandrovskaya have made history at the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships in Taipei, Taiwan after becoming the first Australians to receive an ISU Senior Championship medal.
The current Junior World Champions claimed a silver "small medal" following Wednesday’s Pairs Short Program and while they’re no strangers to making history, their focus for the time being is purely on their skating.
Whilst there is still the final free program to be skated on Friday, small medals are awarded after the short program at ISU Championship events.
“People keep saying that we’re making history for Australian figure skating, I don’t think I’ll really appreciate everything until after the season and I’ve had time to relax and let everything really sink in,” Windsor said.
“For now it’s just skating, just focusing on that rather than trying to think about all the other achievements that we’ve done.”
Despite feeling “a little bit nervous” ahead of Wednesday’s competition, Windsor and Alexandrovskaya gave a superb short program and were just 0.31 points behind American gold medallists Ashley Cain and Timothy Leduc who finished with 66.76.
“You have all the nerves and stuff before comp warming up and then you go through your routine but once you step on the ice, we’ve done a clean short program a thousand times,” Windsor said.
“We weren’t tired at all during that Short Program and that’s a good indication for the Free, I remember at the beginning of our season during our Short Program half way through I was tired.”
2016 Ice Dance Champions Matilda Friend and William Badaoui were back on the ice on Wednesday just three months after Badaoui broke his fibula.
“Rehab hasn’t been easy but with Till and all the support that I have, it’s been amazing. Everyone’s helped me through it so much because it’s a pretty rough thing to go through,” Badaoui said.
Despite finishing in 14th place after their short program, Friend said that the results weren’t going to faze them.
“We felt really confident going into it,” she said.
“We were really excited to be competing again and when we finished the program we were really happy with it and how it all went.
“We didn’t get a couple of levels that we were hoping to get on some of our elements so that brought the scores down quite a bit but we always came into this comp not worrying about what we were going to get in terms of scores so we’re really happy with our attitude going into it and how it turned out.”
The current Junior World Champions claimed a silver "small medal" following Wednesday’s Pairs Short Program and while they’re no strangers to making history, their focus for the time being is purely on their skating.
Whilst there is still the final free program to be skated on Friday, small medals are awarded after the short program at ISU Championship events.
“People keep saying that we’re making history for Australian figure skating, I don’t think I’ll really appreciate everything until after the season and I’ve had time to relax and let everything really sink in,” Windsor said.
“For now it’s just skating, just focusing on that rather than trying to think about all the other achievements that we’ve done.”
Despite feeling “a little bit nervous” ahead of Wednesday’s competition, Windsor and Alexandrovskaya gave a superb short program and were just 0.31 points behind American gold medallists Ashley Cain and Timothy Leduc who finished with 66.76.
“You have all the nerves and stuff before comp warming up and then you go through your routine but once you step on the ice, we’ve done a clean short program a thousand times,” Windsor said.
“We weren’t tired at all during that Short Program and that’s a good indication for the Free, I remember at the beginning of our season during our Short Program half way through I was tired.”
2016 Ice Dance Champions Matilda Friend and William Badaoui were back on the ice on Wednesday just three months after Badaoui broke his fibula.
“Rehab hasn’t been easy but with Till and all the support that I have, it’s been amazing. Everyone’s helped me through it so much because it’s a pretty rough thing to go through,” Badaoui said.
Despite finishing in 14th place after their short program, Friend said that the results weren’t going to faze them.
“We felt really confident going into it,” she said.
“We were really excited to be competing again and when we finished the program we were really happy with it and how it all went.
“We didn’t get a couple of levels that we were hoping to get on some of our elements so that brought the scores down quite a bit but we always came into this comp not worrying about what we were going to get in terms of scores so we’re really happy with our attitude going into it and how it turned out.”
Matilda Friend and William Badaoui Picture: David Barden In their first “big international” as a dance team, fellow Aussies Chantelle Kerry and Andrew Dodds said that they’re using each competition as a learning experience after finishing the day in 13th place.
“We are frustrated with some of the calls that we were given but that’s normal, you’ve just got to work through it. We know that we can do the stuff, we just have to get feedback and see how we can go from there,” Dodds said.
“Every competition we’ve ended with a PB scores so we’re getting there, moving up each time. That’s all we can ask for, we’re a new team.”
“We’re definitely feeling more settled each comp we go to so to come out at the biggest comp we’ve done since we started dance and to actually feel pretty settled skating together, taking our time is good,” Kerry added.
In the women’s Short Program, Brooklee Han placed 13th while Kailani Craine finished 16th.
“Today definitely wasn’t my best performance,” Craine said.
“I made a big mistake on my triple-triple combination jump and I’m really disappointed in that because I felt really confident going into that in the short program.
“Some of the calls I’ll have to go back and have a look at, I missed some levels so I’ll just have to go and have a look at that and just improve. It’s good that I’ve had this now instead of finding this out at the Olympics!
“It’s a really good practice run now and I can just improve.”
For Sochi Olympian Han, who has been battling an injury for most of the season, Wednesday’s performance was an opportunity to get back onto the ice.
“I was happy with the performance of the program, I felt like my combination was the best that I have done this season in my short program,” she said.
“It was disappointing to miss some of my events in the middle of the season and then of course to miss Australian nationals in my home state of Queensland and I really wish that I could have gone to that but I was happy to get back out there again today.”
The Four Continents Figure Skating Championships continue until the 27th January. For results click HERE or follow OWIA on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE for live updates.
David Barden
OWIA
“We are frustrated with some of the calls that we were given but that’s normal, you’ve just got to work through it. We know that we can do the stuff, we just have to get feedback and see how we can go from there,” Dodds said.
“Every competition we’ve ended with a PB scores so we’re getting there, moving up each time. That’s all we can ask for, we’re a new team.”
“We’re definitely feeling more settled each comp we go to so to come out at the biggest comp we’ve done since we started dance and to actually feel pretty settled skating together, taking our time is good,” Kerry added.
In the women’s Short Program, Brooklee Han placed 13th while Kailani Craine finished 16th.
“Today definitely wasn’t my best performance,” Craine said.
“I made a big mistake on my triple-triple combination jump and I’m really disappointed in that because I felt really confident going into that in the short program.
“Some of the calls I’ll have to go back and have a look at, I missed some levels so I’ll just have to go and have a look at that and just improve. It’s good that I’ve had this now instead of finding this out at the Olympics!
“It’s a really good practice run now and I can just improve.”
For Sochi Olympian Han, who has been battling an injury for most of the season, Wednesday’s performance was an opportunity to get back onto the ice.
“I was happy with the performance of the program, I felt like my combination was the best that I have done this season in my short program,” she said.
“It was disappointing to miss some of my events in the middle of the season and then of course to miss Australian nationals in my home state of Queensland and I really wish that I could have gone to that but I was happy to get back out there again today.”
The Four Continents Figure Skating Championships continue until the 27th January. For results click HERE or follow OWIA on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE for live updates.
David Barden
OWIA
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