Career-best Four Continents performance by Carter
Olympic Winter Institute of Australia & Oz Skater Magazine
17th February 2005

Nagano Olympian Joanne Carter has rejuvenated her figure skating career with an impressive short program at the Four Continents Championships in Gangneung, Korea.

Carter skated well throughout her program, planting a very strong triple lutz-double toe combination, a triple flip and a double axel in her routine.

The four time national champion scored 49.63 points to secure the best placing of her six visits to the Four Continents event. She finished ninth in 1999, 12th in 2001, 13th in 2003, 15th in 2004, and 10th last year.

Fumie Siguri of Japan leads the ladies’ event on 61.44 points from compatriot Yoshi Onda on 58.02.

US skater Jennifer Kirk is in third place on 51.24 points.

Reigning Australian national ladies champion Miriam Manzano is in 16th place on 37.64 points, with Sarah Yvonne-Prytula in 20th position on 28.77 points.

Manzano, the best female skater in Australia for the past four years, faces an all but impossible task to overtake her team-mate in the free program on Saturday afternoon.

Finishing as the top Australian in the Four Continents will deliver Carter a place in the World Championships in Moscow next month, and at that event the possibility of qualification to the Australian Olympic team for the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games.

The Sydney 24-year-old is the best-performed skater in Australia’s history. In 1997 at the age of 16, she skated to 11th place in the World Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland, the result qualifying her for the 1998 Winter Olympics.

At those Nagano Games 11 months later, she placed 12th.

A knee injury after the 1998 World Championships, where she finished 13th, put her out of competition for almost two years. University physiotherapy studies also restricted her participation in the sport.

She has credited the rediscovery of her best form to the realisation that she has to put her head second when she skates.

“I am an intuitive skater and I have worked out that I have to skate from my heart not from my head,” she says.

The free program of the Four Continents Championships will be skated on Saturday afternoon (February 19) at 4:30pm AEDT.

In the Dance event, Australian champions Natalie Buck and Trent Nelson-Bond have pulled up one place to 13th overall in a field of 17 couples after the Original Dance segment of the Championship, with a combined total of 56.34 from their first two performances. Danika Bourne and Alexander Pavlov are in 17th place with 49.28 points.