Figure Skating

LONDON, Ont. - It wasn't pure magic, but it worked. Patrick Chan won the men's short program Friday night at the Canadian figure skating championships by a whopping 90.14 points - a mark that is Olympic gold-medal territory. He wore a look of surprise, because his performance wasn't quite Olympic, not yet.

He admitted that the mark had a bit of national boosterism to it, sort of like Evgeni Plushenko at his Russian nationals, although he earned more than 100 points with less content.

"I'm sure a lot of the other skaters were shaking their heads thinking the same thing,'' he said. "Points don't really mean much to me. It's how I felt going out and how I skated.''

Chan said the adrenaline started to work when he heard the crowd reaction to the marks for Vaughn Chipeur of Edmonton, who finished second with 78.87 points. Last year's silver medalist redeemed himself after a lackluster Grand Prix season, when he finished last or second last in his two events.

A surprise third was Joey Russell of Labrador City, Nfld., who landed an elusive triple Axel when he needed to, and earned 74.04 points.

That puts Chipeur and Russell in the running for the second Olympic berth. Other contenders, Shawn Sawyer of Edmunston, N.B. isn't far off in fourth place with 72.93 points, while Kevin Reynolds, the Canadian Quad King, is fifth with 67.39.

Last year's bronze medalist, Jeremy Ten of Vancouver, felt his Olympic dream in his hometown start to slip with a fall on a triple Axel and a couple of other mistakes. He dropped to 11th place.

Chipeur and Russell earned standing ovations, but the crowd was most noisy for Chan. The large crowd erupted when Chan landed an easy triple Axel, but then he put a hand down on a triple flip that was supposed to be the first part of a triple-triple combination.

"I think my foot went in a little flat with the toe, and I didn't get the height I wanted,'' he explained. "I kind of jumped on a little angle instead of being perpendicular, but that's okay. I moved on and that's the test. This is good practice. What if this happened somewhere else? I can get up and move on.''

He would liked to have stuck a triple toe loop on the end of a later triple Lutz, but the angle of the jump and the size of the rink didn't allow it, Chan thought. He opted to do only a double toe loop on the end.

"I didn't have a triple-triple and that's kind of juniorish,'' he admitted candidly. "I was a little disappointed.''

But because he's been training a lot at high altitude in Colorado Springs, he sailed through the rest of his routine. The crowd was already beginning to cheer and applaud seconds before he finished and after he took his final bow, they rose out of their seats and cheered wildly for a long time.

"I had tons of energy,'' Chan said. "I can really project my upper body, my face, everything, due to that extra energy.''

At rinkside, Lori Nichol, his coach chatted nervously to herself, and then looked totally relieved when Chan finished. Chan couldn't hear her, but he knows her so well, it's as if she's already in his head, he said.

"I think she was relieved," Chan said. "She was really worried about that last spin. I have a butterfly [jump] at the end of my program, after my last spin. I didn't do it because I was late in the music. She wanted to make sure I didn't do it, because she didn't want me to go over the time limit.

"I have Lori up in my head. I've worked with her so long. I had a little stumble in the circular footwork, and I saw her head pop up in my head. It was kind of a reminder to stay on my feet and not get carried away.''

For Chipeur, it was redemption and a payoff for soldiering on. After his second Grand Prix, he decided to go back to last year's short program, which served him well at the end of last season when he finished sixth at the Four Continents Championships and 12th at the world championships in Los Angeles, in his world debut.

"It just sort of sat with me a little better,'' Chipeur said. "It had a better groove to it. It just felt right. I think the program I was using earlier in the season was great, but this one was just better for now.''

Sandra Bezic found the music for the short program last year and Chipeur finds that it has a relaxed rhythm to it from jump to jump.

"I just heard it once and it sort of clicked,'' Chipeur said.

He also spent some time training in Colorado Springs, working with Chan and training with his jump coach Christy Krall. "I'm pretty competitive when I'm on the ice with other skaters at my level, so when I'm put in that environment, it's good for my training,'' he said.

Russell's short program to Paint it Black was a total triumph.

Sixth at the Canadian championships last year, Russell skated with joy Friday night and the crowd responded.

"I'm trying to get into the [Olympic] picture,'' Russell said. "I knew that coming here I had to skate two very good programs. So basically before I went to my starting pose, I said to myself, I said to myself: ‘You've got to do it. You've got to do everything. You can't make any mistakes. You can't hold back at all.''

After landing a triple Axel that had eluded him in most of his previous competitions, Russell thought: ‘That'a a big step, to do an Axel at nationals. it's been going upward at home, and I'm just so happy that it came out like it's supposed to.''

At the qualifying event for the Canadian championships, Russell stepped out of it and fell.

Russell's parents, John and Judy are now teachers in Nunuvut, but sat in the audience on Friday night to see him skate the performance of his life. A couple of CanSkate award winners from Conception Bay, Nfld., gave up their two all-event tickets to the Russells to ease the burden of the costs to fly from the north.

"That's the best feeling in the world,'' Russell said. "It's a long treck for them and to do that for them here, it's a big deal to me.''

"I'm happy that it all came together because I've been working so hard at home. It's nice to see it pay off in such a big oversized atmosphere. It just feels so good to finish that program knowing that that's the best that I can do.''