Up until a few weeks ago, Gabby Daleman was Canada’s best-kept secret. We’ve hardly seen her in three years. She’s determined to change that with her straight-ahead fierce focus. Never has there been an athlete who is clearly about blood and thunder, intensity, and sheer want-to passion. She’s motivated like a wasp to a honey […]
Madeline Schizas
Alysa Liu, and the Impossible Dream
“What the hell?” said she, who had just accomplished the impossible. Seconds before Alysa Liu finished her MacArthur Park free program at the world figure skating championships, the crowd of more than 19,000 in the TD Centre in Boston, stood up as one, screaming for her. They broke the sound barrier. “What the hell?” Liu […]
Loena Hendrickx Conquers
MONTREAL It’s quite apparent that Belgian skater Loena Hendrickx is the queen of mind over matter, of love over pain, of rising to the moment. Hendrickx, the European champion, wasn’t even sure she was going to make it to the world championships this week, because she had been in so much pain from a problem […]
Bits and Bobs
MONTREAL – Both Belgian women at the world figure skating championships this week are hurting. European champion Loena Hendrickx says she has an inflamed right hip. “So that’s why I avoid landings because it really hurts to land,” she said. “That’s why I did the practice with a lot of turns after every jump.” She […]
Madeline Schizas and the “Twiddly Bits”
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 […]
A Medal Juggle in the Canadian Women’s Event
Ouch. Ice is slippery. A third Canadian title slipped from Madeline Schizas’s hands in the blink of an eye at Canadian National Skating Championships after the women’s free on Saturday. And surprises awaited. Not only did the two-time Canadian champ not win the free skate, she finished third in it, behind a Calgary champ-in-waiting Kaiya […]
Schizas Rules with Frosty Intent
At these frigid Canadian National Skating Championships in frozen Calgary, Madeline Schizas is in a class by herself. While temperatures hovered around -38 degrees C (felt like 42 apparently), Schizas opined that it was warmer inside than outside. The ice was frozen, as usual. And she felt okay with what happened on that slippery surface […]
A New Look for Schizas
This new Madeline Schizas floats. The two-time Canadian champion looks different this year. It’s the arms, the hands, the head, the feet, the body. Something in the way she moves. She’s taken a step like Joannie Rochette took a step a year or two before the Vancouver Olympics, when suddenly she changed from a competent […]
Tea for Two
Hard toil has paid off for two Canadian women: Madeline Schizas, righting herself for Skate Canada with hard run-throughs, and Gabby Daleman righting herself from a litany of problems after not having done a Grand Prix in two years. Incredibly, they sit one-two after the women’s short program at the Skate Canada International Grand […]
New faces, new beginnings for Canadian skaters
For the first time in years, athletes at the national team training camp in Mississauga this week, are bunking up with roommates in the hotels, like in the old days. And having buffets. It seems, well, rather normal. COVID-19 hit Canadian skaters harder than many, as dominos of competitions were cancelled domestically. They hit […]