Figure Skating

An easy smile, a positive word and Manon Perron knows that Joannie Rochette is having a good day.

And a good day more often than not can translate to an exquisite performance on the ice.

But there weren't many smiles during the early part of this season when Rochette struggled with the expectations and demands that come with being a reigning world silver medallist heading into a home Olympics.

"Your confidence takes a lot of time to build, but it's very easy to lose it,'' said Perron, Rochette's longtime coach.

"So with the performance and competition, the confidence was not at the same level as last year.''

The 24-year-old won silver with one of the finest skates of her career last March in Los Angeles, becoming the first Canadian woman to capture a world championship medal since Elizabeth Manley in 1988.

The scene in L.A. set the stage for a repeat performance in Vancouver - Manley went on to win silver at the '88 Calgary Olympics, the last Canadian to win a medal in women's singles.

With expectations however come distractions, and Rochette's skating suffered.

A poor performance in the short program at her season-opening Grand Prix in China left her having to claw back to finish third. She won Skate Canada but with a far-from-perfect performance, and then struggled to a fifth-place finish at the Grand Prix Final in Japan.

Back home in Quebec, the ultra-competitive Rochette wore her frustration like a huge weight at practice.

"It's not always a perfect day, and she's a perfectionist, so sometimes she doesn't allow any mistakes,'' Perron said. "As an athlete sometimes, you trip and you have to get up and go back to the job. That's the side that she had a hard time with.

"She was always saying, 'Oh no, I want to skate clean! How can I get my confidence back?'''

The solution was to scale back on everything but training, and over the Christmas break she did little but skate.

"Starting the season my life-beat was too fast,'' said Rochette. "I didn't take any rest. One of my goals was to get to Vancouver and know that I did everything I could and have no regrets. So at Christmas I stayed home, trained, said no to everything.

"It's like a cycle, the better you skate the more confidence you get and the more confidence you get the better you skate.''

Arriving in London, Ont., for the Canadian championships a few weeks later, Perron knew Rochette's troubles were behind her. The signs were written in the confident ease of her smile.

"Oh my God, for sure,'' said Perron, who's coached Rochette for the better part of a decade. "I knew she was ready and the performance would be good for sure.

"Happy, relaxed, really good in practice. Almost perfect each day. And in a good state of mind, nothing was bothering her.''

Rochette captured her sixth consecutive Canadian title with an exceptional skate that had the crowd on its feet before the music ended, and served notice she's a serious medal threat in Vancouver.

But she'd prefer not to delve into talk about Olympic expectations - that might just ruin the mood.

"I just want to keep going in the same direction, and focus one thing at a time, and be in that narrow space of time,'' Rochette said.

"I'm not putting any expectations on myself of winning the gold. Of course I want to be on the podium but I want to focus on my performances. I don't want to think about the end result.

"I'm trying not to say too much... it's a sport where the moment you start thinking, that's when you miss so it's better to shut this (conversation) off,'' she added, laughing.

Rochette grew up in the tiny island community of Ile-Dupas, Que., which sits midway between Montreal and Quebec City on the St. Lawrence River. Population: a smidgen over 600. Her parents Normand and Therese speak only French, and Rochette can credit her figure skating career for her vastly improved English.

Her dad, a youth hockey coach, first took her skating at the age of four. She quickly rose up the ranks, winning the Canadian novice and junior titles in back-to-back years. She captured bronze in her senior national debut, and claimed her first Canadian crown in 2005.

Rochette is one of just four members of the Vancouver team with Olympic experience, roaring back from a ninth-place result in the short program at the 2006 Turin Games to finish fifth overall.

The five-foot-two Rochette is athletic yet elegant, and her interpretation of the music shows a maturity beyond that of most of her rivals.

She chose her programs for this Olympic season to convey just that. Her short program is a tango to ``La Cumparsita'' by Gerardo Hernan Matos Rodriguez.

"I thought it would be a good idea for my style of skating because tango can be very strong but also sensual,'' Rochette said. "I didn't want to do all the normal tango poses, I wanted to add some subtleties while using all the nuances and the sensuality a tango can have.''

Her long program is a sultry number to "Samson and Delilah'' by Charles Camille Saint-Saens. It's an ambitious program that builds to a crescendo, backloading the jumps to add potential points (jumps landed in the second half of the program are worth more).

In London at nationals, she sailed through it virtually without a flaw, then pumped both fists in the air in jubilation - and smiled.

"Definitely, it's saying that I'm ready, I'm back,'' Rochette said that day. "It's the second part of my season and I'm starting with a new wind. That feels really good.''