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Aussie
trio fight for one Olympic spot. THE gentle world of ice skating is about to experience a knock-down, drag-out fight for Olympic selection. Australia has three women vying for one possible place at the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City in February and each has an equal opportunity of being there. Until last night, 16-year-old Stephanie Zhang was regarded as the leading contender. She's a brilliantly talented teenager who once landed a triple axel (a jump no woman is doing in competition) when she was 13 and gained Australia's best result (12th) at this year's world junior championships. Another contender is 21-year-old 1998 Olympian Joanne Carter, who has been back on the ice for just 10 months after an excruciating 20-month recuperation from knee surgery. And the third is Canberra's former national champion Miriam Manzano, who retired when she missed the last Olympic selection in 1997. But last night Manzano shocked her younger rivals to win a three-way competition in Sydney. Manzano's return was so unexpected she was not invited to compete in next month's Goodwill Games where Zhang and Carter will have the benefit of competing against the world's top 10 skaters before they go to Bratislava, Slovakia, to decide which of the three Australians will contest the Olympic qualifying competition in Zagreb, Croatia, in November. There the top six will earn Olympic places. Last night's competition was to be a skate-off for two places in the Bratislava competition, but Australia has already been awarded a third place, so it became a mere form guide. Afterwards, Zhang, regarded as the future of Australian skating, and her coach Belinda Trussell, were relieved all three would progress to the next stage. For, in Trussell's words, the teenager suffered a "meltdown" on the ice. She pulled out of her first triple jump, converting it to a single turn, and never regained her momentum. "I am grateful that we have three into Bratislava," Trussell said. "Tonight was not in keeping with Stephanie's training form, and I think that was a mixture of inexperience and immaturity. "I think this event has been really good for her and for me, so we can decide our approach to the Goodwill Games and Olympic qualifying." Zhang spent the first nine years of her life in Harbin, in China's north-east corner, midway between Vladivostok and Inner Mongolia, where, not surprisingly, she learned to skate. She spent the brutal winters at the ice rink and was on the Chinese national junior team at nine, when her family went to Australia on holiday and decided to stay. They settled in Brisbane but after a split with coach Colin Jackson this year, the family moved to Sydney in April. At the Olympic test event in February, the Four Continents tournament, Zhang finished 10th, Carter 12th and Manzano 14th. At 16, Carter finished 11th in the world championships, the best result by an Australian in history. But since the Nagano Olympics, where she was 12th, she has struggled with her knee and is now attempting to resurrect her career in time for the Olympics. "Now there are three of us in an ongoing battle," Carter said after finishing second to Manzano last night. |
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