The top step is always for champions.
Burnaby’s Sarah Tamura knows this for a fact.
The teen enjoyed her first official foray into the world of senior skating, making a smooth transition from the junior level by winning the women’s title at the 2017 Skate Canada BC/YK sectional and Super Series final in Kelowna.
A member of the Burnaby 8-Rinks-based Champs International Skating Centre of B.C., Tamura was one of nine gold medalists from the club, which won the team title after guiding 19 top-three finishes at the competition.
For Tamura, the shift to senior has gone smoothly, but not without a lot of hard work.
“We added one spiral sequence and I did a triple-triple combination,” said Tamura. “I was really proud because both (scores) were personal bests but both could be better.”
She posted the second-best score in both the short and free programs for a total of 169.17 points, beating Coquitlam’s Larkyn Austman by less than a point.
In third spot, 10 points back of first, was fellow Champs skater Megan Yim.
The thin margin between first and second made it especially gratifying for the Burnaby Central student, who incorporated the difficult combo through months of practice.
“In the long program I landed both, really nicely and the best I’ve done. They were spot-on,” she said.
A month ago she returned from an ISU Junior Grand Prix competition in Germany where she scored personal best marks and finished sixth overall – an improvement from a strong eighth-place result posted five weeks earlier in Slovenia.
The key goal at the sectionals was to stretch her program and add elements to complete the extra 30 seconds.
“I think the biggest (adjustment to senior) is to skate more like a senior skater,” she said. “I’m still use to junior skating but I have to bring more speed, more precision.”
For Mitchell Gordon, the margin of victory in men’s seniors was fairly comfortable, as he secured the best scores in both the short and free programs for 200.28 points, 26 points better than runner-up Alex Lawrence of Vancouver. In third place was Champs’ Antony Cheng, who missed silver by 0.1 point.
In junior men’s, Champs’ Brian Le captured gold with the best results in both short and free programs (162.68).
Other first-place achievements were reached by pre-juvenile girls Luka Miyake, juvenile men’s Brendan Wong, novice women’s Vasilisa Matantseva, novice men’s Alek Rakic, junior dancers Ashlynne Stairs and Lee Royer, and senior dance’s Nik Wamsteeker, who is partnered with Kelowna’s Haley Sales.
Here are more Champs’ and Burnaby Figure Skating Club results: MALE, juvenile – 1st Brendan Wong, CH 29.69; 2nd Shohei Law, CH 27.70. Pre-novice – 2nd Shuma Mugii, CH 82.50; 3rd Christopher Fau, CH 77.70; 5th Terry Yu Tao Jin, CH 73.17. Novice – 1st Aleksa Rakic, CH 114.76; 3rd Beres Clements, CH 100.93; 4th Basil Wang, CH 97.23; 5th Gabriel Blumenthal, CH 92.02. Junior – 1st Brian Le, CH 162.68. Senior – 1st Mitchell Gordon, CH 200.28; 3rd Antony Cheng, CH 174.06.
FEMALE, pre-juvenile – 1st Luka Miyake, CH 30.06; 3rd Jessica Liang, CH 24.18; 6th Tiffany Chong, BFSC 21.18; 8th Yolanda Yue Tan BFSC 19.10. Juvenile u12 – 4th Rachel Wang, CH 30.23; 5th Julia Datsky, CH 29.28; 6th Ashley Tan, CH 27.80. Juvenile u14 – 17th Madison Spencer, BFSC. Pre-novice – 4th Melody Zhu, CH 85.09; 5th Marissa Yi Shan Wu, CH 73.75. Novice – 1st Vasilisa Matantseva, CH 115.63; 5th Lititia Chen, CH 95.01. Junior – 2nd Emily Bausback, CH 152.00; 6th Kennedy Lavertu, CH 106.87. Senior – 1st Sarah Tamura, CH 169.17; 3rd Megan Yim, CH 158.91; 4th Kelsey Wong, CH 147.82.
Jr. dance – 1st Ashlynne Stairs/Lee Royer, CH 132.78; 2nd Danielle Wu/Nik Mirakhani, CH 127.96. Sr. dance – 1st Hayley Sales (Kel)/Nik Wamsteeker, CH 150.17; 2nd Sarah Arnold (CH)/Thomas Williams (Cal) 135.47.
