What a great second day of competition at the 2024 Canadian National Skating Championships in Calgary, AB! There were four Junior National titles up for grabs, and Skate Ontario athletes won gold in all of the events – men, women, pairs and ice dance. A total of seven medals were won by Ontario skaters, and the Junior events will come to a close today with the Junior Synchro Free Program.

Day two of competition started out with the Junior Men’s event, where Terry Yu Tao Jin from the Toronto CS & CC had a fantastic free skate to become Junior Men Champion of Canada after a 4th place finish in the short program. “I have been working for this for a while, I think I earned it through hard work and definitely I am going to be back for more I’m going to keep working towards more titles,” said Terry following the event.

David Shteyngart from the Gloucester SC won the bronze medal in this event. Also notable (and impressive!) is that the six Ontario skaters in this event finished in the top 10!

Next up it was the Junior Pairs time to shine. Ava Kemp & Yohnatan Elizarov from the Granite Club, the silver medallists at the 2023/24 ISU Junior Grand Prix Final won the event with a score of 165.50. Following their skate, Ava mentioned “it felt pretty good, still lots of things to improve on.” When asked how it feels to win a national title, Yohnatan said “it feels really good, we put in the work and it feels nice that the training paid off.”

2023/24 ISU Junior Grand Prix Final bronze medallists, Jazmine Desrochers & Kieran Thrasher representing Skate Oakville claimed the bronze medal here as well.

The Junior Women’s event saw a lot of movement in rankings following the short program on Tuesday. After a 3rd place finish in the short, Lulu Lin from the Canadian Ice Academy skated her way to win the National Title with an impressive free skate score of 110.16 and a total competition score of 166.74. “I felt sort of nervous going into the long, but I think as I skated I started to calm down. Overall I felt really good!” Lulu said following her free skate. “It means a lot, because skating is one of my favourite things. So to win a national competition for me feels really great.”

A special mention goes out to Reese Rose of the Gloucester SC for this event, who narrowly missed the podium in a virtual tie for 3rd, ended up in 4th place.

To finish up the day, the Junior Free Dance event was nothing short of exciting. Ilderton SC’s Layla Veillon & Alexander Brandys, who were 2nd in the rhythm dance, moved up to 1st place in the free dance to claim the national title with a total score of 160.80. When asked how it felt out on the ice during their free dance, Alex said “a little bit nervous getting into it, but as we started to skate it felt very relaxed and what we normally do in practice.” Layla said “we really focused on ourselves this competition and just focusing on our journey and our growth. I feel like we were able to do exactly what we do in training everyday.”

Alisa Korneva & Kieran MacDonald from the Kitchener-Waterloo SC moved up from a 4th place finish in the rhythm dance to take the bronze medal.

Competition continues today with the Junior Synchro Free Skate and the Senior Synchro Short Program. For full event information including schedule, start orders/results and the live stream, please visit the Skate Canada website.

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