Make no mistake: Madeline Schizas, two-time Canadian champion, was upset after the Four Continents Championships in Shanghai six weeks ago.
Yes, she finished sixth behind two Japanese, two Korean and one American skater. But she had finished ninth in the short program with scores that didn’t resonate with her wishes. And there’s the rub.
In the short program, judging panels awarded her a “q” on her triple Lutz – triple toe loop combo – in other words a slight underrotation. She lost some points on her triple loop (she did a disguised turn afterwards but flinty eyes judges spied it). And she got only a level three on her final spin, a layback with a Biellmann position.
She said she wasn’t so angry at her skate, but at the technical scores that blinked up on the scoreboard. “Sometimes it’s in your favour and sometimes it isn’t,” she said. “I was not thrilled with that.”
She lost no time in trying to solve it all. After the event, she spent a couple of hours with her coaches, Nancy Lemaire and Alison Purkiss. She watched the entire event, and looked at all of the scores, and all of the scores on the spins. “We looked at every single place where we could get more points,” Schizas said. “EVERY single place.”
They ripped her program apart to find more points. They found spots from jump content, from spins, from steps. “There’s all these places where I could have been getting more points,” she said. “We just really analyzed it.”
She didn’t change much in the layoff of the short program, although she moved the layback spin. There just wasn’t enough time when it was at the end of the program to ensure that she accomplished all four features needed to get a level four. It has been moved earlier in that fast-paced Farrucas program.
When she returned from Four Continents, they recut the music for the short program on Monday, and then she packed off to London to ply choreographer Scott Moir with this new life fact: “We’ve moved a spin. Can you help me with this?”
This gave her lots of time to hone the changes for next week. “It’s been a great move, actually,” she said. “I got good feedback on it and it’s given me more time to get the levels.”
A few weeks ago, she did a simulation in Waterloo and skated a clean short program, with all the changes. “It was a great opportunity that Skate Canada was able to organize,” Schizas said. It happened at the novice national championships, which was being judged by the same Canadian official that is on the list to judge her in Montreal.
“It was obviously good to get feedback from her,” Schizas said.
Much of her feedback had to do with performance, honing in on the character of the program, and the sharpness of the movements. But some of it was technical. She’s made some changes to step sequences “to make sure I’m getting the levels and filling the pattern out enough,” she said. “So a little bit of both happened with the feedback. It was really constructive and helpful.”
She has benefitted from the big break between Four Continents and the world championships next week in Montreal. She also went to Scarborough to have choreographers work on “the twiddly bits,” as Carol Lane calls them. They did move one jump in then free skate, and she’s doing a less risky combination. The choreography for the “Summertime” music has stayed the same, with little details getting some polish. Skating skills and step sequences have been a focus.
“I feel that has made a big difference in my skating,” she said. “I’m skating a lot better than I was at the beginning of the year. I’m really proud of the work that I’ve put in.”
After the Canadian championships, she also switched costumes for the free, dropping the light blue outfit for a bold orchid. She thought she would like a new costume for the second half of the season, and then the Canadian championships hadn’t gone the way she wanted (she finished second). She just needed to wash those thoughts out of her mind.
“My mother told me it was my money and I could do what I want with it,” Schizas said. “It wasn’t going to make a difference, but I still wanted a new costume.”
She’s had good feedback from it, especially with the colour of it. “You can see me better on the ice,” she said. “Before, I was like a speck.”
Schizas said she was actually ready to compete at world championships six weeks ago. But the extra six weeks has helped her train the details.
Last year, she finished 13th at the world championships, but this year, Schizas is aiming for a top-10 finish. “I think it’s a really doable goal for me,” she said. “It’s been my goal the last couple of years and I just barely missed it, like by .8 one year.
“This is the most prepared I’ve ever felt for a world championship,” she said. This will be her fourth world championship. She has figured out how to prepare.
Her parents are both from Montreal. There are at least 15 family members showing up for the short program on Wednesday.
Schizas’s best total international score was the 189.91 she got at Skate Canada International earlier this season. Her score at the world championships last year was 185.78.
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