THE CANADIAN PRESS
The 2010 Olympics will be the end of the competitive figure skating line for Jeff Buttle.
The 2005 world silver medallist and 2006 Olympic bronze medallist said Wednesday that he’ll quit competing and go into more touring ice shows after the Winter Games in Vancouver in little more than two years.
" I won’t be going anywhere past 2010," the 25-year-old native of Smooth Rock Falls, Ont., said of his competitive career. "I’ve accomplished a lot as a competitor."
"There’s things I want to do in the sport besides competing."
He interrupted his chemical engineering studies at the University of Toronto three years ago and returning to school also is a possibility.
First things first: Buttle, who is currently training in California, will arrive in Vancouver on Tuesday to go for a fourth straight Canadian championship.
"I feel really good about my preparations for nationals," he said from Lake Arrowhead during a Skate Canada conference call. "I definitely feel as if I’m in my prime."
Buttle finished sixth at the world championships last March after a season interrupted by a back injury. He hoped to rebound and get to the Grand Prix Final this season but did not accumulate enough points in his two Grand Prix assignments last autumn to qualify for Turin in December, which was a disappointment.
"After the Cup of Russia, I had a little more time than I was hoping for," he said.
He was home for Christmas and trained in Barrie, Ont., for two weeks before heading back to the mountains on the West Coast, where he works with coach Rafael Arutunian.
"I’m on the right path," he said.
The back is not a worry now.
"It’s great," he said. "Because of the injury last season it gets tight every now and then but I’ll definitely take tightness over pain."
The biggest change he’s made lately is dropping his new short program and going back to the technical program he used last season.
"I really liked the new program but if it doesn’t compete well … I just wasn’t jumping it well, and if you don’t jump well it reflects on your component score," he explained. "It was a tough decision."
"I was a bit of a skeptic at first, but I think it was the right decision."
The 2008 nationals are his 10th as a senior and 14th at various age levels.
"It’ll be exciting competing at the site of the 2010 Games," he said.
He had a quick answer when asked who he thinks will be his chief rival.
"Obviously, it’s going to be Patrick (Chan)," said Buttle.
Chan, of Toronto, made it to the GP Final and the 17-year-old has been wowing the judges all season.
For the first time in 11 years, Emanuel Sandhu will not be competing in men’s singles. The 2001, 2003 and 2004 national champion informed Skate Canada last week that he wouldn’t be entering.
"I wasn’t completely shocked," Buttle said of the news. "I knew he had a lot of things on his plate."
"It’s definitely going to be different without him. I’ve always looked at him as my main rival at the Canadian championships. Emanuel has accomplished things other skaters wished they could do or dreamed of doing. To beat Evgeni (Plushenko) at the Grand Prix Final (in 2004) isn’t anything other skaters can say they’ve done. I’ve always admired him as a skater."
.During a second conference call conducted by Skate Canada, ice dancers Tessa Virtue of London, Ont., and Scott Moir of Ilderton, Ont., who were fourth at the GP Final, downplayed hype that has them easily winning their first senior national dance title.
"With the new judging system, ice dancing has come into a new age," said Moir. "There are no guarantees for anybody."
"You have to go out there and do the elements, and if you don’t nobody knows where you’re going to wind up."
It’ll be a monumental upset if they don’t emerge with gold. They train in Canton, Mich., with coaches Igor Shpilband and Marina Zoueva.
"The Grand Prix Final for us was a great event," Moir said from Canton. "It was very motivating."
"We skated well so we’re going to use that momentum to build up for nationals."
The former world junior champs were sixth at their first senior world championships last March and will aim for a medal at the 2008 meet in Goteborg, Sweden, in March.
"We’re never going to be satisfied until we’re on top," said Virtue.