The Springbank Figure Skating Club (SFSC) was well represented at the 2020 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships, held Jan. 13 to 19 in Mississauga, Ont.
Local skaters included Dawson Nodwell, Milara Okabe, Josh Brauner and Tim Pomares. While none of the athletes reside in Springbank, they all do at least some of their training under SFSC coaches at the Springbank Park For All Seasons.
Competing at his third national championships, Nodwell skated to an 11th-place showing in the senior men’s individual category. Though he fell on his free skate, the 19-year-old Calgarian said he was pleased with how he fared in his short program.
“Overall, I’ve had some time to reflect about the entire experience, and I’m really happy I was able to layout one really good program that I was proud of,” he said.
“Despite the difficulties in free skate, I was still happy I was able to go through everything and not stop fighting until the very end. I’d say it was successful.”
This year marked Nodwell's first time competing in the senior men’s age group and he said he enjoyed the added attention and scrutiny that came with skating against the country’s best figure skaters.
“I was competing against people with a lot higher arsenals – international competitors and people who, for a long time, I’ve looked up to,” he said. “I’ve watched them on TV, and now I’m actually competing against them, which is a big change.
“Obviously, the competitions I’ve been to before were exciting and big, but this was a whole new step. There were a lot of firsts, so I’m really happy to have experienced that for the first time – like being on TV and being in front of a huge audience.”
With nationals concluded, Nodwell’s competitive season is on hiatus until the summer, though he will continue to practice throughout the winter and spring.
“I’ve taken a couple of days off, but generally, even if the season is over, it doesn’t mean training stops,” he said, adding his regimen includes practicing six days a week, either at the Springbank Park For All Seasons or the Olympic Oval in Calgary.
Other SFSC athletes who found success in Mississauga were 16-year-old Okabe, of Okotoks, and 23-year-old Brauner, of Calgary, who competed in the novice pairs event. They were eligible for the novice age group, as Okabe is under the age of 18.
Considering the pair only partnered up in May 2019, their SFSC coach Greg Berezowski said the skaters performed admirably to finish in sixth place. He added their performance was particularly strong, given the injuries each skater battled prior to nationals.
“[Okabe] had an injury with her ankle prior to our provincial championship, and then [Brauner] had a shoulder injury after that,” he said. “She ended up with a semi-fractured scaphoid bone in her wrist right before Christmas, so we were fighting injury all the way up to the competition.”
Because of Okabe’s wrist injury, the pair had to scale back their routine during nationals, according to Berezowski, as they could not perform certain hand-to-hand lifts.
Berezowski said the skaters’ chemistry has improved in the eight months they've been working together, adding their on-ice harmony will only continue to progress in the months and competitions to come.
“They get along quite well and they’re fairly supportive of each other, which is integral to a pair being successful,” he said. “Right now, their biggest strengths are the side-by-side elements, so basically the individual elements where they’re not doing something pair-wise. They’re both strong jumpers and spinners.”
With the 2019-20 season concluded, Berezowski said new skill acquisition will be Okabe’s and Brauner’s focus until competitions resume in the summer.
“As they are together for longer, the pair elements will develop a little more, which is where a lot of the points really lie in our system,” he said.
Pomares, the final SFSC member to compete in Mississauga, skated to a seventh-place finish in the novice men’s individual competition. The Okotokian came out on top in the short program component, but dropped six places in the standings following the long program.
