Australian Ice Dance Champions, Danielle O’Brien and Greg Merriman have finished in 20th place at the 2012 World Figure Skating Championships.

Along the way the AIS athletes made history in the Short Dance becoming the first Australian team to make the finals, achieving 20th place and scoring another PB by over five points.

The Short Dance performance, which earned Danielle and Greg 47.92 points, follows their stand-out performance in the qualifying round, which catapulted the Sydney couple into the best twenty-five ice dancers in the world with only twenty couples advancing to the final Free Dance.

With the top- ranked nine dancers still to compete, O’Brien and Merriman were happy to settle for 21st place, an achievement in itself after five years trying to break into the top 24, when the second French couple, who placed 7th in the European Championships last month, faltered and were placed below the Australians.

“It was history in the making,” said Australian Team Leader, Melina Simjanovic. “With only the top two groups left, we all knew there wasn’t much hope. Dan and Greg were happy with what they thought would be a 21st place. Dani even started planning what she would do tomorrow (sight see). Then the French team skated and had a few mishaps, but we thought they would still be scored above.”

“Then scores came up and 47 points were announced. Greg knew he and Dani also scored 47 but thought that theirs was in the low 47s and therefore would miss by the narrowest of margins. I turned to Dani to say you’re in. Suddenly we all realised they would make the top 20 and therefore, the finals,” Melina said. “Dani looked shell shocked and it took a while for the result to sink in to both of them.”

“They skated fantastically. We are all looking forward to seeing Dani and Greg at their absolute greatest to date in the Free Dance tomorrow. It’s a chance for them to perform, enjoy and have a blast.”

Building towards a successful 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics has been the long-term goal for the young couple, who moved to Bloomfields Michigan last September to train with Pasquale Carmerlengo and Anjelika Krylova. Danielle (from Strathfield) and Greg (from Canterbury) have given up family life to pursue their potential.

“We have more belief in ourselves now and it helps to be training in a team who are supportive and have a coaching staff who are supportive. We know we need to push ourselves and we have learned this through our training environment,” Danielle and Greg said after the event.

“This event has definitely been a turning point for us. It’s really nice to receive so many compliments and good wishes. Technically it wasn’t the strongest that we could do but we enjoyed it and are happy with whatever we did because we had qualified through to the short.”

“We produced the best short dance we have done this season and the scores showed it.”

Creating history was not on the their minds. “We knew we had potential to be good. Just didn’t know when we would be able to put it out there and make it happen,” they said.

In the final dance, Danielle and Greg remained in 20th place, recording a personal best overall score of 112.23 points.

Other Aussies in Action
Also representing Australia at the World Championship individual events were Brendan Kerry and his younger sister Chantelle who both made their World Championship debut.

In the preliminary rounds, Brendan placed 15th place in the men's skate with Chantelle finishing in 22nd in the women's event.

The Winter Youth Olympic Games in January was a turning point for fifteen year-old Australian figure skater Chantelle Kerry, who surprised herself with a ninth placing. After the Four Continents Championship in February last month, the vivacious, smiling Kerry subsequently gained selection to her first World Championships in Nice, France and will be competing in the qualifying round tomorrow.

The 2012 World Championship is her first and keeping it all in the family is coached by her mother, 1988 Olympian Monica McDonald. The family affair doesn’t stop there with Chantelle being joined by her seventeen year-old brother, and also competing in his first World Championship.

Chantelle is looking to place in the top ten in the qualifying round to move through to the Short Program. With thirty-three ladies, it’s a tall order for one of the youngest competitors.

“We never expected Chantelle to be at this event,” said excited mum, Monica McDonald, “but the opportunity came up, so we took it.”

Assisting Olympic coach in Sydney, Kylie Fennell believes Chantelle could be a dark horse in the qualifying. “Chantelle has kept working, doing her thing and flying under the radar. Her jumps have improved, with two of her triples coming clean in the past few weeks. Also in her favour is a delightful presence on the ice and very strong spins,” Kylie said.

Australian Men’s Champion, 17 year-old AIS figure skater Brendan Kerry has his sights set on the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and will also need to qualify tomorrow. Three weeks ago he finished 22nd in the finals at the 2012 World Junior Championships.

In the largest field ever contesting a world championship, Australia's five-time Ice Dance champions Danielle O'Brien and Gregory Merriman have placed 8th from twenty-three teams, qualifying for the Short Dance segment of 2012 World Figure Skating Championships.

Scoring a PB of 71.37 for their Free Dance, the Sydney couple broke into the main championship for the first time in five attempts, despite the heel of Greg’s boot splitting away in the last minute of their performance, requiring him to change feet for the final lifts in the program.

Australian Team Leader, Melina Simjanovic said their performance was mature and improved.

“Greg’s heel broke in last min of program and they kept going, which is amazing,” Melina said. “Overall they have improved so much and looking more mature. The work on the connection between each other and the audience has paid off, and their components marks show it. They are over the moon and so hyper. This result has already given them confidence and I think will be the turning point for them in their pathway to Olympic Winter Games.”

Danielle became aware something was amiss with Greg as they headed into the final section of the performance.

“Greg acknowledged to me with 45 seconds to go that something was wrong with his boot. I didn’t know what it was so told him to keep going as we went into the last lift. He did the lift on the other leg because he knew he wasn’t stable on the boot where the heel had broken. We saved the lift but the level was decreased because we did ¾ rotation instead of one rotation. It wasn’t until the end of the program when we got off that I realised just how bad his boot actually was,” Danielle recalled.

Greg, who is known as the laconic, laid back one in the team, took the mishap in his stride. “We are happy with this performance and it’s definitely an improvement from Four Continents last month. Technically didn’t bank all points we could have, but overall I feel it was the strongest this season and deserving of the PB, especially for the components. But I’ll go and get my boot fixed now,” Greg said.

With the world’s top fifteen contenders, including Vancouver Olympic Champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, earning direct entries to the final, it was left to the remaining twenty-three couples to battle for the ten places to compete in the Short Dance.

The Australians are relieved to be moving on. “As qualifying drew closer we became a lot more nervous thinking about getting over the hurdle of qualifying but we feel a lot more relaxed now, very prepared and have nothing to lose for the short. We can just go out and perform,” they said.

Danielle (22 from Strathfield) and Greg (24 from Canterbury) relocated to Bloomfields, Michigan USA in September last year to train full-time with Pasquale Camerlengo and Anjelika Krylova’s world-class stable of ice dancers to fulfil their dream of making the Australian Winter Olympic team for Sochi, 2014 after suffering the heartbreak of not qualifying for Vancouver when Greg became ill at the 2009 qualifying event.

OWI figure skating athlete Brendan Kerry has achieved a personal best result at the ISU Junior Figure Skating World Championships in Minsk, Belarus.

Kerry eclipsed his previous best Junior World's result of 19th in the preliminary rounds of 2011, by finishing in tenth this year to qualify for the main event.

After the short program, Brendan was sitting in 22nd place and remained in that position after the free skate event.

In the women’s event, Brooklee Han advanced through the preliminary round in fifth place, advancing to the final before finishing in 30th place in the women’s short program.