THE CANADIAN PRESS
The door to the world figure skating podium has swung open for Canadian ice dancing champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir.
Patrick Chan and Jeff Buttle can only win men’s singles medals if others falter, Joannie Rochette’s chances in women’s singles are remote, and Jessica Dube and Bryce Davison have an outside shot in pairs. But it is with Virtue and Moir that Canada’s best chances rest when competition begins Tuesday in Goteborg, Sweden.
The withdrawal of Russians Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin, who has reinjured the left knee he had surgery on in December, should allow Canada’s champions to reach the podium — not that they are happy about Shabalin’s misfortune.
“It’s too bad,” says Moir. “It’s nice to go to a world championship when everybody is healthy and you can compete against the best.
“At the same time, we’re excited about the opportunity that lies ahead of us.”
At the 2007 world championships in Tokyo, Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviski of Bulgaria won gold while Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon of Montreal took the silver and Kingston, Ont.-born Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto of the United States captured bronze. Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder of France were fourth followed by Domnina and Shabalin and Virtue and Moir were sixth.
The top two couples subsequently dropped out.
Domnina and Shabalin won the Grand Prix Final in December and, just three weeks after his surgery, they took the European title. They were the consensus pick to wear the senior world crown for the first time, with Canada’s champions knocking on the door.
Virtue of London, Ont., and Moir of Ilderton, Ont., have worked hard at their club in Canton, Mich., in the four weeks since winning the Four Continents meet in South Korea.
“We’ve been making everything stronger and trying to perfect everything going into worlds,” says Moir.
Their first practice in Sweden is on Sunday and the compulsory dance is Tuesday.
“The podium is a goal of ours,” says Virtue, who at 18 has the chance to become one of the youngest ice dancers to ever earn a senior world championship medal. “We think we’re ready.”
In men’s singles, Brian Joubert of France, Daisuke Takahashi of Japan, Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland and Tomas Verner of the Czech Republic were 1-2-3-4 at the 2007 championships and will be the main players in Goteborg.
Joubert has struggled this season, while Takahashi has excelled. He was sensational in winning the Four Continents meet a month ago.
Lambiel, the 2005 and 2006 world champ, proved in edging Takahashi to win the Grand Prix Final that he is capable of reclaiming the crown. Verner will have a say, too, as he showed in relegating Lambiel to silver and Joubert to bronze at the European championships.
Chan, Buttle and Americans Evan Lysacek and Johnny Weir are in the next group of hopefuls.
Chan, the Toronto teen who took the Canadian title away from Buttle in January, is going to his first senior world championship so a podium position might be out of reach, especially with the lack of a quad, but he’s the brightest prospect in the world. If there is a breakthrough performance, he could be the one delivering it.
Chan, who skipped Four Continents because he’d already done the GP Final and because he had high school exams coming up, has inserted a second triple Axel into his long program.
“It was quite a bit of work,” he explained during a Skate Canada conference call.
Chan has upped his presentation levels, too.
“After nationals I had to go through a period where I had to refocus,” he said. “You have to keep your head in the game.”
Michael Slipchuk, Skate Canada’s high performance director, has met with Chan to drive home a point.
“He’s explained to me, Just go and have fun’,” Chan elaborated. “If I put pressure on myself, that would only slow me down on the road to 2010.
“I’m just going to go and give it my best shot.”
His goal is 240 total points, which would better his personal best by eight points.
“I try to aim high,” he says.
Buttle was second after the short program at the 2007 championships and made so many free-skating errors that he faded to sixth. Now he’s been relegated to No. 2 status in Canada, but he contends that shouldn’t hurt him in Goteborg.
“It’s a brand new competition and I really don’t think international judges care about any domestic results,” he says.
Buttle considers the favourite for gold to be Takahashi, who will be armed with two quads and two triple Axels in his free skating.
“He was in a league of his own at Four Continents,” Buttle explained. “He blew us out of the water.
“If he skates like that at worlds (he’ll win). I don’t have the repertoire to compete with that. I’m just going there to do my own thing. That’s really all I can control.”
The Toronto resident remains without a quad.
“I’m still training it in practice but it’s just not ready to be in the program,” he said. “I need it to be a consistent jump before I can put it in the program.”
Uncertainty surrounding the fitness of two of the top women’s contenders makes Mao Asada of Japan the front-runner.
Finishing 1-2-3-4 at the 2007 championships were Miki Ando of Japan, Asada, Yu-Na Kim of South Korea and Kimmie Meissner of the United States.
Kim was a clear winner over runner-up Asada at the GP Final, but recurring back and hip problems are threatening to ruin her season. She had to pull out of Four Continents after straining ligaments at the hip, and it was in her homeland so the injury had to be major. Question marks surround the gifted teen who trains in Toronto as the attention shifts to Goteborg.
Ando will undergo surgery in April on the right shoulder she dislocated more than a year ago. She’s been inconsistent this season, which is understandable given worries that her arm might pop out of joint at any time.
Rochette was runner-up to Asada and a spot ahead of Ando at Four Continents. Canada’s champion from Ile-Dupas, Que., is in a group pushing for the podium that also includes 2006 world champ Meissner, European champ Carolina Kostner of Italy and Yukari Nakano of Japan.
Inconsistency has been a Rochette trait, which explains why she slipped to 10th at the 2007 championships after placing seventh in 2006. If she wants to be viewed as a serious medal contender at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, she needs to show that she’s at long last learned how to deal with big-meet pressure.
She’s been working hard to improve her short program because placing 16th in the short was her downfall in Tokyo.
“I know that if I want to be a medal contender I need a good short program,” she says.
Inclusion of a triple-triple jump combo that will help her vie for titles with the Asians is a must, and she’s just about perfected her triple flip-triple toe loop.
“It’s getting much better but I still have work to do on it,” she said. “I need to keep trying it in competition and it’ll come, for sure.”
Mira Leung of Vancouver plummeted to 24th last year after a foot injury from breaking in new skate boots. If she gets near the top 10 this time, Goteborg will have been good.
In pairs, Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy of Germany have been dominant all season and are everybody’s pick to win the vacant world title. Qing Pang and Jian Tong of China, the 2006 winners and 2007 silver medallists, and teammates Dan Zhang and Hao Zhang are expected to join them on the podium.
Dube and Davison were fourth at the GP Final behind the Germans and the two Chinese pairs before losing their Canadian title to Anabelle Langlois and Cody Hay, but they represent Canada’s best chance in Goteborg after Langlois missed precious training time due to a fractured rib and surgery to remove a kidney stone a month ago.
Dube of Drummondville, Que., and Davison of Cambridge, Ont., are saying they’ll play it safe rather than attempt difficult tricks they haven’t quite mastered.
“It’s more important to go clean with what we have rather than trying to push the envelope,” Davison said. “We’re looking for top five.”
Improvements in their short or technical program should help them get there.
“Our short has been the weaker program,” says Davison. “We’ve been pounding away at it in the last month or so.
“We’re hoping to get a clean short out that has more expression than it did.”
The podium is possible, he adds.
“It isn’t way out of reach, but we’re not thinking about that this year,” he says.
Langlois of Grand-Mere, Que., and Hay of Grande Prairie, Alta., are in tough to repeat their top-10 showing of a year ago given the injury and health setbacks.
“We’d like to move up a couple of spots,” says Hay. “The Chinese and Germans are the class of the field right now.”
Also representing Canada in pairs will be Meagan Duhamel of Lively, Ont., and Craig Buntin of Kelowna, B.C. Buntin tore a rotator cuff in a shoulder during the exhibition performance at nationals and has a March 31 date for surgery. He will be on painkillers in Goteborg. If they finish in the top 10 at their first world championship together, their trip will have been a success.
Duhamel is excited.
“I have no idea what to expect,” she says. “It’s overwhelming.
“This is what I’ve worked for all along so I’m really looking forward to getting there and being on the ice with all the best skaters in the world.”
The pairs free skating is Wednesday, the women’s final is Thursday, the free dance is Friday and the men’s final is Saturday.
Canada’s other ice dancing entries are Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje of Kitchener, Ont., who will try to better their 20th of last year, and Allie Hann-McCurdy of Orleans, Ont., with Michael Coreno of Delhi, Ont., who are first-timers.
The championships are being held in Sweden for the first time since 1976, when they also were in Goteborg. Canada’s best result that year was posted by Toller Cranston, who was fourth in men’s singles after winning Olympic bronze a month earlier in Innsbruck, Austria.