By Dylan Nazareth

Fresh off her senior nationals debut, Ontario skater Kara Yun is preparing herself for a first appearance at Jr. Worlds later this month.

The 16-year-old earned her first senior medal with a bronze at Skate Canada Challenge in December, adding a sixth place finish at nationals in January. Reflecting on the experience, she is very happy with how those competitions went.

“I think it was like really amazing to be able to skate in seniors,” she said. “It was a really new experience and I think I learned a lot from it and the environment was really good too, something new for me.”

Coach Lee Barkell says he’s proud of how she composed herself through these first major tests at the senior level.

“I thought she managed herself great,” he said. “We’ve really focused since she started training here on working on her confidence, working on her believing in her abilities.”

This season, Yun has worked hard to not only improve her on-ice skills, but on steadying her mental game as well. And it’s made all the difference in producing at competitions like nationals.

“Mostly I just focused on trying to do the best that I can and just on what I can do and not others,” she said. “[This season] I started focusing more on my self-talk and breathing too.”

It all came together for the young skater in Laval, putting together a strong free skate to bounce back after a difficult short program, earning a total score of 169.28 and a memory she’ll never forget in front of a sold out arena.

“I think my favourite moment was just right after my long, feeling like I did it,” she said. “It was the crowd too, the crowd was really good.”

It was an unforgettable moment for her coach as well, watching someone he’s seen work so hard perform so big when it really counted.

“[My favourite moment] was definitely her free program,” said Barkell. “It was great to see her go out and do what she’s capable of, we could definitely tell she was extremely happy and proud of herself.”

Part of building her strength this season has come from a heavy training schedule created with her coaching team, including multiple sessions each weekday, a practice every Saturday just for skating skills, and running competition simulations, practicing different skating orders ranging from going first to going last.

Now, she’s carrying the lessons from this season of tough training and big competitions into her biggest yet later this month.

“I think I’m mostly just focusing on myself,” said Yun. “Having more confidence and trusting that I have been training to do it.”

The 2025 World Junior Figure Skating Championships kick off February 25th, in Debrecen, Hungary, where Yun will take to the ice alongside another Skate Ontario athlete in Lulu Lin.