Who knew?
CHRISTINE RIVET, Kitchener-Waterloo Record
3rd March 2005

Unexpected participants at these championships include skaters from Turkey, Chinese Taipei, Israel, Mexico, Spain, New Zealand and Australia.

"People are always asking me what figure skating is in Australia," said Aussie national junior ladies champ Phoebe Di Tommaso, who finished 29th in Tuesday's short program. "They ask, 'What are you doing that for?'"

The sport is suffering from a definite lack of public awareness, according to one of Di Tommaso's coaches, former pairs skater Liz Cain, who along with her brother, Peter Cain, finished 10th at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics and has a bronze medal from the first-ever world junior championships in 1976.

There is no government funding for figure skating in Australia. So a skater's parents are left to foot the bill for training and travel, she said.

"Unless it's something like speed skating or aerial skiing, or something that we've won an Olympic gold medal in. They are doing quite nicely. The rest of us are self-funded," Cain said.