Kayla Halliday is nonplussed as she laces up her figure skates across from Canadian Olympian Larkyn Austman prior to an afternoon training session at the Poirier Sport and Leisure Complex.
The 13 year-old and her Coquitlam Skating Club teammate talk about dogs and whether Austman, a vegan, can eat peanut butter and what brand she prefers.
Halliday is preparing to take her next step on a journey she hopes will lead her down a similar path Austman travelled to the Olympics.
The Skate Canada B.C. and Yukon sectional championships that begin on Thursday at the Poirier Sports and Leisure Complex will be Halliday’s biggest competition as a pre-novice, the first rung on the ladder of serious skating where competitors have to develop both a short and a long program.
It’s a big step up from juvenile, in which competitors skate only one 2.5 minute program.
That’s meant more work on her conditioning with dry land training like running for 45 minutes, Halliday said, as well as learning to reset her focus in competitions for a second skate.
She said sticking to her pre-competition routines, like eating her mom’s fettucine alfredo for dinner the night before and softly playing her program’s music from under her pillow as she sleeps, is especially important, as is tuning out some of the social distractions of hanging out with friends between her skates.
“I have to maintain my focus,” she said.
Part of that is developing the resilience to bounce back from a missed step or bad skate.
Halliday said she knew she was making progress on that front when she finished fourth at the BC/YT Summer Skate in Burnaby last August after she had twisted her ankle while warming up off the ice.
A top four result in this week’s competition will qualify Halliday for a chance to compete at the Canada Winter Games, next February in Red Deer, Alta., where she’ll be up against experienced skaters who’ve been pre-novices for up to three years.
• Other Coquitlam Skating Club members competing at the sectionals include: Jagoda Cala; Carson Consiglio; Stafania Barakaeva; Sofia Balogh; Katelyhnn Petrak; Sophia Lashin; Naju Osaki; Viona Khalilipour; Jake Willing-Sato; Chloe Xu; Yolanda Tong; Yui Seto; Vicky Pan; Mya Hanson; and Abigail Chow.
