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Skaters
show they're hot on ice YOUNG ACT ice skaters have taken seven first places and five second places in the Eastern Australian figure-skating competition. There were three events, the Olympic trophy challenge, artistic trophy and Bendigo Dragon City Trophy. Coach Reg Park said he was proud of the team's efforts and results. 'In the artistic trophy we swept the board, it was getting rather embarrassing actually - but they were great,' he said. Park coached six of the eight people who went to the competition, most of them at this stage wanting to take up professional ice skating. He hopes Kacie Shelley will go to the nationals in Perth in the first week of August. 'I think she should do pretty well. I would love to say, yes she'll win, but I believe there's some pretty tough competition.' His skaters they train four mornings a week from 7am until 8:30am, and do an hour or two in the afternoon. Park admitted that ice skating was a minority sport, and said that on a national scale it had been going through the doldrums in the past few years, though he thought it was 'starting to pull up again.' 'We had a time when it was really great, we had a lot of kids in competition, and then suddenly it seemed to just go nowhere, but I think we are coming out of that now,' he said. Park said many things influenced that, including the loss of rinks, but more were now being constructed. Park said there wasn't a realistic chance of getting a medal at the next Winter Olympics, but to finish in the top 20 would be a good result. |
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