Skating Fridays

Sectionals recap – Part 1

This past weekend, I competed in Adult Sectionals. I entered 3 separate events – an open freestyle event (based on my level and age group), a dramatic entertainment event and the championship gold ladies event. Today I will talk about the first event of the weekend… my open freestyle event.

There were only 4 of us in the event, so each of us was guaranteed a medal of some color. My coaches and I had a game plan for how I was to spend my day. I had a script written out that I leveraged for my previous competition, and I planned on using the same strategy. That day, I stuck as closely to the script as I could. I did my pre-competition warm up (on land) and visualized my program.

When it came time to skate, I wasn’t nervous. I skated to my opening spot and began. At that point, my adrenaline took over, and I found that I was slightly ahead of the music. This turned out to be a blessing because then I could take my time on my spins. Because I did not wear a tiara that day, I did not experience a costume malfunction!

All of my elements felt pretty solid… except the dang axels. I know of several skaters that get “competition camels,” where their camel spins do not show up and end up not counting. Well, I experience “competition axels,” where this jump continues to elude me outside of practice. I under-rotated both of my axels, and they ended up getting dashed. I did feel a little bit funny on my change foot combination spin and wasn’t sure if my back sit spin was low enough.

Once the results were posted, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had earned the gold medal. Despite my multiple errors, I still placed first. I didn’t earn a very high score but it was still several points higher than what I’ve earned in the past. So I definitely made improvements.

Much to my excitement, my skating bestie earned the silver medal! So the two of us won gold and silver in the event. All of the ladies in our event were incredible and had wonderful performances. I’m excited that each of us walked away with some hardware since we all earned it.

This sport is so incredibly hard to do well, and it’s amazing that we’re able to continue to participate despite life’s daily challenges (adulting, jobs, children, etc.). I’m so proud of all of us!

More to come next week!

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