No cooling off for teenage ice queen
MADONNA CAMERON , Courier Mail
4 August 1999

A WINTER Olympics dream beckons for teenage Queensland ice skating prodigy Stephanie Zhang after she snared a rare double in taking junior and senior titles at the nationals in Adelaide at the weekend.

Zhang was only able to move into the senior ranks after she turned 13 this month.

Now the Chinese-born teenager is being tipped as Australia's next ice princess and is bidding to represent her new home in the world figure skating championships in Brisbane next March.

Zhang is not wasting any time in preparing for future events.

After the thrills of her weekend success, she was back on the blades at the Acacia Ridge ice rink yesterday practising new routines.

"There's no mistakes allowed at international level," Zhang said.

She spends four hours a day, six days a week working on her programme, which includes a triple axel - one of the sport's most difficult moves.

While her senior competitive career is only in its early days, Zhang dreams of contesting the Olympics before turning professional.

Australian Institute of Winter Sport figure skating programme manager Belinda Trussell has predicted Zhang will skate for Australia at Salt Lake City in the 2002 Winter Games.

Her coach, Colin Jackson, says the Olympics are certainly within the capabilities of the youngster who moved to Brisbane from Harbin in China with her family two years ago.

"She's been a top skater for three years but has been too young to compete at international level," Jackson said.

But plenty of hurdles remain before the young skater can realise her dream of contesting the world titles in her new home town.

Australian can only nominate one skater for the world titles. Zhang is now locked in a battle for that position with Australia's current top skater, Olympian Joanne Carter.