Results/article - 2008 Canadians Mens short program
Vick444~No
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
P
A
C
E
Very nice mens short program, my highlights was Patrick
Chan's program & "AIR" Chipeur huge triple axel.
Vick
January 18, 2008,
Settle down, all you people with the shovels. Don't start
trying to bury Jeff Buttle just yet.
Buttle, the reigning Canadian men's champion, skated a
brilliant, error-free short program Friday afternoon at
the Pacific Coliseum to take a commanding lead over the
rest of the 18-man field at the 2008 BMO Canadian Figure
Skating Championships.
Buttle - the 25-year-old from Smooth Rock Falls, Ont.,
who was supposed to be in peril here against a gang of
young and talented guns - landed a triple flip,
triple-toe combination, a triple Axel and a triple Lutz
to go with the impressive array of spins and footwork
that have put him on the world's most prestigious
podiums.
The 2006 Olympic bronze medalist and 2005 world
championship silver medalist scored a whopping 80.80
points, good for a solid lead over Toronto's Patrick
Chan, who is second with 73.20. Tillsonburg, Ont.'s
Christopher Mabee is third with 70.46 heading into
Saturday's freeskate. All three were personal bests.
"I'm here to defend my title, I'm not here to have a good
time," said a smiling Buttle. "Obviously, I want to enjoy
myself but I'm here to defend my title and I don't want
anyone else to take it from me.
"I told myself coming in that I'm not plateauing. I'm
getting better.
"I'm so much stronger than I was even a year, two years
ago. As long as I keep that improvement there's no reason
to doubt myself or come in thinking that I'm not as
strong as the others. I came in here with more confidence
and I think that showed and paid off."
Buttle, sixth at both the 2006 and 2007 world
championships, is seeking his fourth straight Canadian
title. It'll take a bit of a collapse for anyone to catch
him Saturday.
Chan, 17, the 2007 world junior championship silver
medalist and a Grand Prix winner this season in Paris,
put his hand down on the ice on a triple Axel. It was
counted as a fall but he landed a triple flip, triple toe
combination and a triple Lutz.
"I was like, what are they going to mark," Chan said of
the slipup. "I've done that before and I didn't know if
they'd count it as a fall. But before the program I told
myself if I missed the Axel to just make sure that you
get the next jumps done. You have to. I did and I was
proud of myself."
Chan, who hadn't missed a triple Axel all season, was
pleased with his short.
"It's a good start," said Chan. "At the previous (senior)
nationals (he was seventh in 2006 and fifth last year)
I've been too in senior the short wasn't the best.
Finally I got this one out and it's a good start for
tomorrow."
Vaughn Chipeur of Edmonton is fourth with 69.10, Ottawa's
Fedor Andreev is fifth 67.16 and Shawn Sawyer of
Edmundston, N.B. is sixth 64.00.
Coquitlam's Kevin Reynolds is seventh after a personal
best of 60.10 in the short.
He opened with a planned quad salchow, triple toe. He hit
the quad but only did a single on the toe and got a
deduction of four points four not having a double in his
program. He then hit a triple Axel, triple Lutz.
"It was a personal best but I was hoping for a bit more
with the marks there," said Reynolds, who will come back
today with a long program today that has two quads, a
salchow and a toe and eight triples.
"The jumps have been feeling good all week so I'm feeling
good going into the long," he said.
All in all, it was an interesting afternoon of skating.
"That was excellent, one of the best short programs I've
ever seen," Skate Canada high performance director
Michael Slipchuk said of Buttle's program.
"New people on the scene, it gives you a bit of a push.
It's like it was with Kurt (Browning) and Elvis (Stojko).
The skaters all go out and skate well and the champion
takes it up a notch."
That's the kind of deja vu everyone around Skate Canada
wants to experience once again. A strong champion who can
win on the international stage pushed by a cast of strong
national contenders.
It just may be a bit premature to annoint a new champ
just yet.
Port Coquitlam's Gary Wong was 13th Friday with a new
personal best of 53.92.
"I felt good. I just wanted to come here and show what I
can usually do in practice," said Wong, a teammate of
Reynolds at the B.C. Centre of Excellence under head
coach Joanne McLeod.
"I wanted to show myself and my personality. It was a
clean skate. Maybe one or two of the landings could have
been a little better but I'm really happy with it."
Burnaby's Jeremy Ten, the 2007 Canadian junior champion,
is 14th with a score of 52.37.
"It definitely wasn't my best and it's a little
disappointing considering how I was training all week,"
said Ten, another B.C.C.E. skater. "But it's a sport and
things happen. Hopefully I can come back and pull back in
the long."
Squamish's Keegan Murphy, who came out of retirement to
skate at nationals in Vancouver, is 18th with a score of
46.23.
In Friday's opening event, Kelsey McNeil of Salisbury,
N.B., came from second place after the short to win the
free skate with a score of 77.52 and capture the junior
women's title. McNeil finished with 120.85 points, just
ahead of Sherbrooke, Que.'s Vanessa Grenier, who scored
77.05 in the free skate for 119.80. Amanada Velenosi of
Laval, Que., finished third with 117.33. Toronto's
Rebecca Addison, first after the short, dropped to fourth
with a total of 116.92.
Delta's Cecylia Witkowski ened up seventh (111.79) while
Burnaby's Rika Inoda finished 19th (91.61).
LINK:
http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=65979a26-3b56-462f-8057-3cc71f21dcf0&k=63845
Shillelagh
<Vick444~No Spam~@aei.ca> wrote in message
news:47917a61...@news.aei.ca...
>
>
> S
> P
> O
> I
> L
> E
> R
>
>
> S
> P
> A
> C
> E
>
>
> Very nice mens short program, my highlights was Patrick
> Chan's program & "AIR" Chipeur huge triple axel.
> Vick
>
>
>
>
> January 18, 2008,
> Settle down, all you people with the shovels. Don't start
> trying to bury Jeff Buttle just yet.
>
> Buttle, the reigning Canadian men's champion, skated a
> brilliant, error-free short program Friday afternoon at
> the Pacific Coliseum to take a commanding lead over the
> rest of the 18-man field at the 2008 BMO Canadian Figure
> Skating Championships.
I doubt anyone's trying to bury Buttle. However, none of
the Canadian men has a hope in hell of winning Worlds or
the Olys without a quad, much as I hate to say it.
I enjoyed watching the Canadian men's short programs,
but they still look like they're in the development stages
without a quad.
Shelagh