Bracknell Ice Skating Club Newsletter - December 2005
BISC Skaters Triumph at Championships
BISC is in jubilant mood after members notched up their most
successful British Championships for many years.
Not only did Rebecca Forsyth and Christopher Hockaday win the
primary dance championship at iceSheffield but Simon Waller won
silver in the junior men’s figure skating championship … the first
solo figure skating medal won by a club member for at least a decade
and the first ever by a “home-grown” Bracknell skater.
Yuen Tung Chiu also did the club proud by finishing 5th out of 23 in
the primary ladies figure skating event. “Of course the club is
delighted to have won gold and silver but we are proud of all our
championship skaters,” said club chairman Roy Welham. “This will
boost the club’s reputation nationally and we hope it will be a
springboard for Rebecca, Christopher and Simon to get the
recognition we feel they deserve from the National Ice Skating
Association and the chance to represent Britain in International
Skating Union competitions.”
Rebecca, 14, and Chris, 16, who have skated well all season, were
originally the only couple to qualify for the primary dance
championship because of the change this year to the New Judging
System which brought with it new standards to pass the competitive
tests needed to compete at British championships. It showed the
couple’s enormous sportsmanship that, after they had won the last
event when skaters could qualify, they asked NISA if a rival couple
from Streatham could be allowed to compete. NISA subsequently
decided to have “an invitational aspect” to this year’s event. While
acknowledging that the British Championships should “always remain
an elite competition and therefore entrance should be of a standard
that warrants entry and also adds something to the level of
competition”, it agreed that some who had failed to reach the
qualifying standard could be allowed to enter.
It meant the Bracknell duo had a couple to compete against and they
beat the opposition in both the compulsory dances and the free
dance.
“They skated well and it was a convincing win,” said David Phillips
who coaches the couple at Bracknell with his wife Lucine
Chakmakjian. The couple are also coached at Slough. Because there
are no age limits on the lower dance championships, it is not a
foregone conclusion that Rebecca and Chris will move up to junior
level next season.
“They may do another international competition in the new year
before they decide. We will take advice from NISA about whether it
feels they should move up and we have to look at the pass mark for
the junior test and whether they feel confident they will pass,”
David said. Rebecca and Chris were selected for the British
Development Squad after they won the novice dance title early in
2004. But they failed to get re-selected when they finished 6th in
last year’s primary championship even though they came 5th and 4th
among big fields in two non-ISU internationals this year.
For Simon, 18, the championship was just as much about proving
himself to NISA and getting back into the British squad as it was
about winning.
He knew after the Scottish Championships in October, when he won
bronze, that he had a good chance of winning because he was able to
do more triple jumps than his rivals. In fact when it came to the
British he found that the other juniors could only do half the
triples while he could do a triple axel (3.5 revolutions) and is
consolidating a quadruple jump which he did in the official
practices although not in the competition. He was also the only
skater in the entire event to land a triple-triple combination in
the short programme – the best the others did was a triple-double.
Although he skated well in the short technical programme – he
finished just half a mark behind David Richardson who had won the
Scottish Championship - he did not do so well in the long programme.
But it was good enough to keep him in second place, ahead of the
skater who had come second in Scotland.
“Of course my coach (Jon Bonny) and I are disappointed I didn’t win
but I did prove that I should be taken seriously by NISA. Everyone –
competitors, spectators, coaches and judges – was commenting on my
jumps and I have also shown that I will be a serious competitor next
year when I move up to senior level,” Simon said.
Simon was selected for the development squad when he came 5th in the
novice championship in spring 2001 but lost his place after a broken
ankle stopped him competing in the primary championships in December
that year and he came 6th the following year.
Although Yuen Tung Chiu, 12, did not win a medal, she still beat 18
competitors to come 5th in the primary ladies’ short and long
programmes, and 5th overall - five places higher than last year. She
looks set to keep her place in the squad especially after she came
4th out of 21 in an international in Finland early this year and won
bronze in an ISU international in Zagreb, Croatia, a week before the
championship.
* It was also a good championship for three former BISC members who
now train full-time at iceSheffield. Kira Geil and Andrew Smykowski
won bronze in senior dance while John Horne and his new partner
Rowan Musson won bronze in junior dance.
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