Wonder pair Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya and Harley Windsor have capped off an incredible year by winning the Junior Grand Prix Final in Nagoya, Japan.
 
The current Junior World Champions, who have now won a total of five international victories and one third place podium result, always believed they could win the prestigious International Skating Union’s end of year event, which brings together the six best juniors and six best senior skaters in each discipline to determine the best of the best.
 
Australia has never medalled at either the Junior or Senior Grand Prix Final and this win is yet again another historic milestone for the nation in the sport of figure skating.
 
“Our skate was great. A little tiring for me but it was great,” Alexandrovskaya said immediately after the free program.
 
After a strong short program on Thursday, Windsor and Alexandrovskaya were sitting in second place behind the Russian team Apollinariia Panfilova and Dmitry Rylov and only 1.34 points separated the top four teams. The pressure was on for the free program.
 
Windsor faltered on the opening triple salchow – landing the jump then falling off the edge. Undeterred, they powered to their side-by-side triple toe combo in perfect unison and completed a quality packed program scoring a total 173.85 points sneaking ahead of Panfilova and Rylov by less than one point (173.01)
 
“It was a little tough, at least for me,” Windsor said. “There was one big mistake but we are happy that we pushed through it and everything else was relatively OK.”
 
Galina Pachin, who coaches the team with her husband Andrei, was ecstatic.
 
“It’s amazing. It’s like a golden rain this past two years,” Pachin said. “Harley told me that winning and gold medals are like an addiction now.”
 
“They are already more mature and definitely dealing with pressure better. I don’t any pair who have gone from nothing to win Junior Worlds and qualify for Olympics in just two years,” Pachin said.
 
On their goal for the coming Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, Windsor – who will be Australia’s first Indigenous Winter Olympian, was frank.
 
“We’re not there not to win a medal. We want to skate two of the best programs that we can and that our ultimate goal is to finish in the top 12. We will be extremely happy,” he said. 
 

In a comprehensive victory, Kailani Craine has won her fourth consecutive national title surpassing her personal best score by nearly five points at the Australian Figure Skating Championships in Brisbane.

23-year-old Brendan Kerry made it a six-time win, coming from well behind in the short program with a fighting free program to retain his crown as Australia’s Men’s Champion.

Kailani had a spectacular national’s campaign with a clean short program that included a triple/triple combo and backing up with two triple lutzes in her free program to Moulin Rouge, achieving a PB total of 172.06 points.

“I love my short program,” she said.

In second place was the new junior national champion Amelia Jackson from Queensland who backed up by making the podium in senior ranks and in third was veterinary science student Katie Pasfield from NSW.

Struggling with multiple international flights and jet lag, Brendan Kerry skated a horror short program, missing every jump and ending up fifth on 57.17 points. He had his work cut out to catch short program leader Mark Webster who was on 65.03 points leading into the free program.

Fighting back to overhaul an eight-point lead, Kerry landed two triple axels and a triple/triple combo in the free program, earning 197.29 points, which was enough to secure the title ahead of Andrew Dodds on 190.80 and Mark Webster on 184.51, both of whom also skated strong free programs.  

Kerry had been testing out the order of the quad jump elements at the recent Shanghai Trophy in China and at the national championships.

“I wanted to see if I felt comfortable with the quad salchow as the first element, so we tried it in Shanghai but I didn’t want to base a decision off one comp, so nationals was a safe testing ground,” Kerry said.

“I’m definitely now able to sort the order of elements to put out strong consistent skates from here on out.”
Kerry will return to his new training base in New Jersey next week.  

“I’m looking at getting in some really solid training time without having to bounce around for comps. They were disappointing skates at nationals but I’m really happy I pulled up and won my sixth title. It’s important to me, especially heading into the Olympics.”

“At nationals I wanted a clean second half and when the loop didn’t happen, I was angry.”

Paris Stephens and Matthew Dodds took out the pairs championships and new dance team this year Chantelle Kerry and Andrew Dodds were impressive in their first championship together winning the dance.

Belinda Noonan
OWIA

The Australian Figure Skating Championships in Brisbane this week will provide national champions Brendan Kerry and Kailani Craine with an almost last opportunity to test their programs ahead of the PyeongChang Games next February.

Both skaters have returned from their US training bases for the senior national titles in Brisbane to be held Thursday 7 and Friday 8 December at Boondall Ice World.

Kailani Craine (19) will be going after her fourth consecutive title, while five-time Champion Brendan Kerry (22) will be seeking his sixth.

Craine intends to test out harder technical content in her short program.

“I'm really looking forward to the nationals this year. I always love competing in front of a home crowd, and I really hope to deliver a personal best performance,” she said.

“It's also an excellent opportunity to practice my routines before the Olympic Games with harder content, especially in my short program.”

“This year has been so exciting for me, so I hope to finish with my tenth overall national title (in all divisions). It's always a fun time catching up with my fellow team mates and I love to see how much everyone improves each year.”

Kerry is expected to have a smooth ride to his sixth title.

“It’s important to come home and do nationals because as Australia’s best I feel obligated to come back to defend my title and compete alongside the up and coming Australian skaters,” Kerry said.  

“At this event I want to try and see what’s comfortable and what isn’t in regards to the order of elements headed into the Olympics. The new free program is going really well so far and transitioning from a thought process to more of a go to set of actions.”

Pair champions Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya and Harley Windsor will not be in Brisbane to defend their 2016 crown but competing on the same days in the ISU Junior Grand Prix Final in Nagoya, Japan.

2016 Ice Dance Champions Matilda Friend and William Baddoui are also out of this year’s championships after William sustained a broken ankle in training a few months ago.

The Australian Figure Skating Championships will be live streamed on the Ice Skating Queensland Facebook page.

Entry to all events are free of charge at Boondall Ice World, Sandgate Road, Boondall. The Senior Men’s short program starts at 8.40pm (AEST) Thursday, 8 December and the Ladies at 9.50pm.

The final free programs on Friday, 9 December begin at 11am (AEST).

A competition schedule can be found at http://www.isa.org.au/afsc

As unlikely and unpredictable as Australia’s Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya and Harley Windsor’s Junior World Championships title seemed back in March this year, of even more significance is the continual melding the figure skating pair are bringing to their sport, lives and partnership.

In a stunning two seasons, Alexandrovskaya (17) and Windsor (21) have come from nowhere on the international figure skating scene to have now captured four gold medals and one bronze and are preparing for the PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games next February.

With the Junior Grand Prix Final title within their reach this week in Nagoya, Japan the pair and coach Andrei Pachin articulated their impending move from Junior to Senior ranks, what that means and how their partnership has matured and progressed.

“This season didn’t start so good,” Andrei Pachin said of the pair’s fourth place in their first Junior Grand Prix in September. “Harley and Katia were thinking about how others were thinking about them after winning the Junior World title.”

“Just before Oberstdorf (the Olympic qualifier) they became confident.”

“Even in the last few weeks now, you can see Harley is now really confident and really professional in practise. They are confident about going for the Junior Grand Prix Final title.”

“I could see this confidence in Poland (two weeks ago). They can cope better with little mistakes. One mistake last year would destroy everything. Now they can go through the program – they are very professional.”

In the lead up to the Junior Grand Prix Final in Japan at the end of this week, Pachin said that his team were ready.
“There have been four clean shorts and one clean free program.”  

The husband and wife coaching duo of Andrei and Galina Pachin from Sydney’s north west have proven to be strong role models for their team in life as well as figure skating.

Where Andrei is dogmatic and relentless, Galina is critical of the finer points. Andrei has a global view, Galina looks after detail. The same could be said respectively for Katia and Harley.

It’s not uncommon for Andrei and Katia to have short, sharp explosions whereas Galina and Harley would be in quiet discussion to resolve a training issue.

“Andrei is good for Katia. I’m good for Harley,” Galina says.

It’s that simple.

Andrei is looking to the future.

“I feel like we have to go ahead and look ahead beyond Olympics and Worlds in 2018. The technical luggage we have not will not be enough for next year (beyond this season),” he said.  

“For Olympics and Worlds it’s important to get a result to ‘book your place’ for the future.”

The pairing of the unlikely couple is realising a career-long passion for their coaches.

“We weren’t sure it would happen like this. But step by step, it has happened. Now I can see with conditions we have now and the quality we have now we can fight.”  

Alexandrovskaya’s increasing confidence in English is providing an opportunity for local skaters to discover more than seeing by example. Her serious determination to be the best is unswerving. She expects success and knows how to achieve it.

Basking in past results holds no water.

“Last season was last season and that’s already gone. We were World Junior Champions but that’s already last year,” she said in August.  

“Communication last year was with hands. (It’s) much better now. I can talk to people. Harley is quiet. I’m much louder. Yes, it’s much better now. I know him.”

Harley’s passion to achieve and learning how to think like a champion will also have a lasting impact at home.  

“Last year every competition was a new experience. I learned how to mentally prepare myself for competitions,” Windsor said.  

“This year I don’t want to come second. I kinda like the taste of gold.”

When a pair skater girl is repeatedly thrown in excess of ten metres across the ice, the boy is asked to lift multiple times, both land complex jumps and then required to bring emotional power to four minutes of a free program, it takes a special combination of talent and personality to succeed.

Windsor and Alexandrovskaya are normal and do have their occasional spats and then get on with what they want to achieve.

Skating to the Rolling Stone’s ‘Paint It, Black’, Alexandrovskaya explains their short program as “dark and hard music, very strong”.

“It’s more difficult mentally. More transitions, more emotions because we think not just about elements.”

The emotional repertoire required is a challenge they are both willing to achieve and keep building upon. 

“Last season the programs were very basic with a focus on us getting to the elements,” Harley said.

“If you want to be a really good senior pair you can’t pick just anything (to skate to). You have to pick something that suits both of us.”

“I like that we can show how we can step up and have variety,” he said.

“As we skate more together and mature, we will show stronger emotions and connections. That’s important to us.”
Katia holds the same view.  

“For the free program it’s different music, different style (to the short) from the film Mask. First part is jazz and again jazz in the early second part. Third part is rock and roll. I like more the jazz part, but I love all music.”

Training at the New South Wales Institute of Sport (NSWIS) in Sydney’s Olympic Park under a program devised by OWIA’s John Marsden and Zsolt Zsombor from NSWIS has been integral during this all-important season.

“NSWIS has been huge. Especially the altitude training. If we didn’t do NSWIS we wouldn’t be as fit or strong. Week by week we would increase. The weight went up and a little more reps plus the altitude got harder and harder,” Windsor said of their preparation before the Olympic qualifier in September.

“It was smart what Zsolt did - planning it all out and increasing slowly and surely. It’s made us smarter in the way we train and how we prepare.”

Will nerves play a part at the Olympics?

“I don’t do nervous before competitions. Senior is of course mentally harder,” Katia said with a shrug. “I want clean programs and wait for the result. We need just to skate.”

Windsor believes there has been a big shift this season.  

“We are both good competitors and we are both good at turning it up a notch when it matters.”

“I’m sure there are far, far better skaters than us but not everyone can compete. But the ones who can turn it on and perform when it counts are the ones who are there at the end.”

The ISU Grand Prix Final and Junior Grand Prix Final for the best six in the world in each discipline is in Nagoya, Japan from December 7 to 10.

Alexandrovskaya and Windsor will compete their short on Thursday, 7 December from 4.10pm (AEDT) and their free program on Friday 8 December from 6pm (AEDT).

A livestream of the Junior Grand Prix Final can be found at https://www.youtube.com/isujuniorgrandprix

More information and results can be found HERE
 
Belinda Noonan
OWIA