Skaters right at home for 2011 STARSkate
Figure Skating: Okotoks Club hosting provincial competition March 17-20
The last time the Okotoks Figure Skating Club hosted the Alberta STARSkate championship two of its members were watching their idols as they were too young to compete.
However that won’t be the case this weekend for Shelby Postlewaite and Sarah Nelson when they compete in the 201l Alberta STARSkate at the Okotoks Recreation Centre on March 17-20.
“The last time STARSkate was here (2006) we were ice patchers — we would go out and fix the ice,” said the 16-year-old Nelson. “I remember watching the gold triathlon and a member of our club (Alicia Williams) won it. It was so exciting.”
Nelson and Postlewaite are hoping to give the club’s young members the same sense of excitement when they both compete in the gold triathlon this weekend.
It is one of the premiere events of the championships. The triathlon consists of three disciplines, skills, interpretive and freeskate.
Postlewaite was third in the silver triathlon last year; she made the jump to the higher level after passing the gold standard during testing in the summer.
Both Nelson and Postlewaite bypassed sectional competition to skate at STARSkate in Okotoks.
“I wanted to skate at home in front of a hometown crowd – it’s exciting,” said Postlewaite, a Grade 11 student a Foothills Composite High School. “STARSkate is one of the most important competitions and we have planned our year around it.”
As far as skating against each other, it’s not a big deal for the two friends.
“We have done it lots of times before,” Nelson said with a laugh. “Sometimes we skate right after each other and we will high-five one another as one gets on and the other gets off the ice.”
Postlewaite agreed.
“We definitely hope for the best for one another,” Postlewaite said.
While Postlewaite and Nelson are veterans of STARSkate, Hannah Vold and Danielle Forester are relatively new to the competition.
Vold skated in her first STARSkate last season.
“I was nervous because there are so many people and the flights are bigger,” said Vold, a Grade 8 student at John Paul II Collegiate. “And we are skating at home. I will be a lot more comfortable because I know the ice.”
Vold is competing in both the preliminary freeskate and interpretive.
“My goal is to complete a clean program – to land all my jumps,” she said.
Forester, a Grade 6 student at St. Mary’s School, is glad her first STARSkate competition is in her hometown.
“It will be a lot easier because I am used to it,” she said of the ice.
She is also competing in the preliminary freeskate and the interpretive, where she will be skating to the Monster Mash.
Okotoks Figure Skating Club coach Kerri Roberts said there will be 740 entries at STARSkate this weekend.
“That is substantial,” Roberts said. “The organization committee has been outstanding — they’ve even managed to get part of the arena painted.”
The hometown club will have approximately 40 skaters competing this weekend.
“It will be good for the kids because they get to skate on home ice,” Roberts said. “What is expected of them is still the same — to lay down their best performances.
“And I am confident they will.”
The competition is being held at both the Piper and Murray arenas this weekend.
For more information about STARSkate go to www.okotoksskatingclub.com
bcampbell@okotoks.greatwest.ca
In order to post comments on our web site, you must validate your email address. An email was sent to you when you registered that included an activation link. If you have not yet done so, please click on the link to activate your account.
If you did not receive your activation email, please click here to have it resent.
Already a member? Login here!
Not yet a member of the site? Register here!
Comments
Be the FIRST to comment!