Canada's Joannie Rochette makes history, takes silver at world figure skating finals

LOS ANGELES - It was even better than she imagined.

“This was my little girl dream,” Joannie Rochette said. “I always dreamed to do it, but this year, I believed it.”

The 23-year-old from Ile Dupas, Que., skated off with the silver medal at the world figure skating championships Saturday — just the second Canadian woman in 36 years to stand on a world medals podium — and immediately afterward fell into an enormous hug from the first.

“Silver’s a great colour, you know,” beamed Liz Manley, who followed up her 1988 Olympic silver with the same finish at the subsequent worlds. Before that, Vancouver’s Karen Magnussen had been the last Canadian female medallist, in 1973.

“I know, I know!” Rochette said to Manley. “I’m following your program.”

In her seventh world championship, Rochette finally broke through with the skating week of her life. She had no chance to catch the runaway leader after the short program, Korea’s Yu-Na Kim, who was magnificent again Saturday to shatter the world record. No woman had ever cracked the 200-point barrier for combined points in the two programs, and Kim recorded a staggering 207.71 to win by more than 16 points.

“I don’t think about points, but I made a good performance here,” said Kim, who shook her head in disbelief when he marks came up. “I kind of thought I could win because I had a very high score in the short program — but a short program is just a short program. I knew I still had to skate very well in the long. But I think I did pretty good.”

You might say that. Kim’s tour de force, at the head of a field of exceptional women skaters, sets up a terrific scenario for the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, and so does Rochette’s silver, which she won narrowly over 2007 world champion Miki Ando of Japan, with 2008 world champ Mao Asada well back in fourth place.

“This is the last world champioships before the Olympics,” said Kim, “so I really wanted to get this title. So I’m prety proud of that.”

Rochette made one major error, doubling a scheduled triple loop that was doomed by a slow entry, and stepping out of her second triple Lutz. She also had a little extra hop on the end of her opening Lutz-double toe-double loop combination, but the deductions were mostly minor and she fought through them to deliver a very attractive package that obviously resonated with the judges.

When her marks came up and she was ahead of Asada, who had landed a triple Axel and tried two, Rochette’s face was a mixture of joy and incredulity.

‘Yes, because I made those mistakes, and thought after the last one, I have to be perfect from now on, and I kept fighting and I’m really proud of that,” she said.

Ando followed with a terrific skate that had the first sellout crowd of the week at Staples Center on its feet and roaring its approval several times during the performance, but she came up less than a point short of Rochette’s total of 191.29.

The week was pretty much a disaster for Canada’s other skater, Cynthia Phaneuf.

The 21-year-old from Sorel, Que., whose career nosedived after a growth spurt following her precocious Canadian championship at age 16, finally made it back to the worlds after a three-year absence only to skate two badly flawed programs here and finish 15th.

She fell three times on attempted triple jumps, put a hand down on a fourth, and lost any attempt to create a mood with all the technical errors coming in the first half of the program.

“I was just a little bit slow today,” said Phaneuf, after a long, deep discussion with coaches Annie Barabe and David Pelletier. “I tried until the end, and didn’t give up. I don’t think anybody could try any harder than what I just did. I didn’t pop anything, I tried everything, went for it. I was just slow — I had no explosion [in the jumps], I don’t know why.

“It was better than the first world championship (she finished 20th in 2005), and I had a good week, it was just my two programs that wasn’t the best that I can do.”

Alas, the programs are the bottom line at a world championships.

The women on the podium aced theirs.


Source article: Canada's Joannie Rochette makes history, takes silver at world figure skating finals