PRINCE GEORGE, B.C.
Yukon figure skater Mikayla Kramer didn’t finish with a personal best score, but from the excitement in her voice, it’s clear that doesn’t matter to her.
Kramer ended the pre-novice competition at the Canada Winter Games with a performance she’ll remember for a very long time.
“(I finished) with a clean skate - the best skate I’ve ever done since I’ve been training really hard for this,” said Kramer. “My score was lower than my personal best, but I think that’s because they judge extremely hard. Last time (at another competition) I fell twice and I got a higher score than this time, and this time I skated the best I could have.”
Kramer placed 11th in her free program for 12th overall in pre-novice ladies on Wednesday in Prince George.
She completed her double salchow-double toe, double-lutz-double loop, spiral sequence, double lutz and axel all with full points. She had a small subtraction in her double flip-double toe.
“It feels good. It’s a huge motivation,” said Kramer. “Just being here is super fun, meeting people and stuff like that. If I had finished last, it wouldn’t have changed anything.”
Kramer finished with a clean routine. She also started with one.
The 12-year-old took 10th place out of 19 skaters in the short program on Monday, reaching a personal best score of 24.21.
“Not that I’ve seen every one of Mikayla’s competitions in the last year, but I’ve seen her at provincial events, and I’d say this was clearly her best two programs - she managed to put them together at the same event,” said Yukon coach Jason Mongrain. “It was nice to see how she responded to a packed house and her first experience at this calibre, so I was very, thoroughly impressed.”
Kramer, who is a member of Whitehorse’s Arctic Edge Skating Club, skated to sixth place in Ladies 3 at the 2014 Arctic Winter Games.
“I think it was my best program and I think it’s something I can keep improving on,” said Kramer. “There are no regrets or anything.”
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com