Skating Fridays

Competition Recap – John Smith Memorial

Last weekend, I traveled alone to Charlotte, NC to compete in the John Smith Memorial competition. Normally, this competition is not on my radar, but because Eastern Adult Sectionals is being held there in March, I wanted to get a sneak preview of the facilities.

One of my rinkmates was competing in the National Qualifying Series, so he skated on Friday and Saturday night. Sadly, I did not arrive in time to cheer him on.

My event only had 3 skaters, including myself, and I am friends with the other two women. The other two skaters are very competitive athletes and have bested me multiple times in previous competitions. In fact, both of them beat me at Sectionals last year, and one of them was the first alternate to the Championship Gold women’s event at Adult Nationals. Yes, that is how fierce this competition was going to be!

I had a good 20 minute practice earlier that morning, where almost all of my elements were on point. My official warmup also went well. I was first to skate, so I did not get the full 6 minutes to get warmed up.

The biggest win for me (which is NOT the color medal I earned, by the way) is the fact that I did not get scared on my axels. In previous years, I would have a mental hurdle on these and get scared. Since 2014, my axel success rate (defined by whether I received credit for the jump) was hovering around 0%. I wish I was kidding. Last year, I managed to earn credit on 60% of my attempts, which is a huge improvement.

This competition, I landed both of them and received points. I did get them downgraded (with a single < mark) but they did not get dashed! This is a HUGE accomplishment for me. I’m hoping to ride the momentum and continue skating with confidence so that I continue to improve.

The other two skaters had wonderful performances, yet somehow the judges placed me in first. Our scores felt artificially low, but the same logic was applied to all adult skaters that day, so at least it was consistent across the board.

I was proud of this performance and am excited about the momentum and confidence it has provided me. Onto the next competition!

PS – This was the 47th rink where I have skated! I am going to go back in time and recap rink #46 next week. This is a bit out of order because I wanted to share my competition results first. 🙂

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