Provincial 'C' Championship (11 and under)

Over the past weekend, my daughter competed in the Ontario speed skating 'C' Championships for skaters aged 11 and under. This competition was held at the River Oaks Recreation Centre in Oakville, which meant a little bit of driving for us. For the record, the arena is a very nice facility, with good size dressing rooms, much bigger than our club is accustomed to. I just wished they hadn't put the teams that traveled the farthest  in the change room the farthest from the line-up area. Nothing like adding to the journey! :)

This meet marked her 3rd and last competition of the season. Early in the season, she managed to place 3rd in a meet, winning a bronze medal, while at her last meet, she was fighting the flu and didn't fair so well on the ice.

Coming into the weekend, she was hoping the win a medal. We talked on our long drive up about what to expect this weekend, and to aim for PB's more than medals. I also explained that she would be racing against only girls her age, and that there were 4-5 girls who had posted faster 400m times than her best time, making it a challenge to finish in the top 3.

During her warm-up on the first day, I could tell right away she was going to have a good weekend skating. Her form looked good and she was skating faster than most of the kids on the ice. In her first race, a 400m, she had a good start and skated hard through all 4 laps. She posted a new PB, beating her old time by 5s, but unfortunately finished 2nd, 5 seconds behind the leader. The good news was her time was fast enough to get her into the 'A' finals, but the bad news was that she was the 5th seed. In that race, she didn't have a great start, as she was starting from the far outside lane, and could never catch up to the 4 other girls, essentially finishing 5th. She was also 1s slower than her heat time. She wasn't upset, but I think she realize there that finishing in the top 3 would be difficult.

Coming around the 4th corner

In her second race, a 100m, she finished 2nd in her heat, this time she came up 0.25 seconds short of making the 'A' finals. In the 'B' finals she improved her time a bit, but finished 2nd, leaving her behind in top 5 points. As we went home that evening, she asked if she had a chance of winning a medal. I explained to her that it would be very difficult to win a medal, but if she could make both 'A' finals in her last 2 races, she had a good chance of finishing in the top 5 and receiving a ribbon.

On day 2, her warm-up looked good, but you could tell she was a little more tired than the day before. In her first race of that day, a 200m, she had a good race but finished 3rd in her heat, 0.04 seconds behind the other girl. That time is so small, that I don't believe the time keepers could say definitely which of the 2 skaters finished ahead. When the rankings came out for the 'A' finals, she missed the 5th spot, losing to the girl who edged her out in her heat. Leading up to her 'B' final, I told her that if she finished first, she would have a chance of making the 'A' finals for the last race of the day, and possibly win a ribbon.

Here's the race. She's the skater on the inside part of the track.

If the above video does not work, here is a link to a shared drive where I have uploaded it.
As you can see, she wanted to make the 'A' finals for the last race, which she did.

In the last race, a 500m, the top 6 skaters, based on points, raced in the 'A' finals to give everyone a chance to move up in the ranks. I informed her that if she was going to win a ribbon, she had to do better than 4th, while beating both the currently ranked 4th and 5th place girls. She had a good start and as all the skaters came around the 2nd corner, 2 of the girls fell down, leaving it to a 4 girl race. My daughter stayed in 3rd place the remainder of the way, finishing 1 second from 2nd and 0.3 seconds ahead of 4th. It would come down to where everybody was ranked going into the race to see if she managed enough points to reach 5th place. At this point, I informed her that even if she didn't win a ribbon, she set Personal Best in all the distances she raced over the weekend and that was a very big accomplishment. This made her somewhat happy.

When it came time to the medal ceremony, the moment of truth came out and she finished in 6th place, meaning no ribbon for her. You could see the disappointment on her face, but you could also see the desire to do better. As we drove home that evening, we talked about creating an off-ice training plan for the summer so that next year she could be faster against the girls who are bigger than her and have a better chance of winning a medal/ribbon.

Glad to see she wants to keep getting better.