A graduate of the Okotoks Figure Skating Club nearly had to book his second trip to a world championship after he and his partner had the best skate of their careers on the weekend.
Thomas Williams, 20, and Nicole Orford finished sixth in the Senior Ice Dance competition at the Canadian Figure Skating Championships on Jan. 20-22 in Moncton, N.B.
“This was our first year competing as Senior,” said the 20-year-old Williams in an interview from Moncton on Jan. 23. “But we are still eligible to skate Juniors — we will be competing at the Junior Worlds in Belarus in about six weeks.”
Williams and Orford were bumped up to the Senior level at Nationals because they won the Junior Canadian championships in 2011. They were thrilled with their sixth-place finish in Moncton, but also disappointed.
“We finished sixth overall, but we were less than a point from fifth and less than two points from fourth place,” Williams said who skated in Okotoks as a youth. “If we would have gotten fourth, we would be going to the Senior Worlds.”
Orford had mixed feelings about the finish.
“That’s exactly the word I would use — bittersweet,” she said. “We did everything we could, but at the same time we were so close. But really skating at Junior Worlds has been our focus for this year.
“It would have been great to be in the top five, but we are still really happy with how we did… It was probably the most fun I have ever had skating.”
Williams agreed.
“We pretty well maxed out our score so I was really happy with how we skated,” Williams said. “We had nothing to lose going into the short dance (on Jan. 21). We had only worked on our program for about five weeks — new choreography. We just wanted to have a clean program. We we’re thrilled to see we were less than a point from fifth after short dance.”
However, after finishing sixth in the short dance, things got amped up going in their four-minute free skate on Jan. 22.
“I was actually a lot more nervous going into the free skate because we might be able to pull up to fourth or fifth,” Williams said. “I thought it was the best we ever performed. It felt really good to me.”
Williams and Orford were fifth in the free skate, but their score was not quite high enough to reach fifth-place overall.
Olympic gold medalists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won the Senior Ice Dance in Moncton.
“I got to talk to them a little bit after the event and that was pretty cool,” the 19-year-old Orford said, who hails from Burnaby, B.C. “It was just cool being in the same competition as them. I didn’t think even that would ever happen.”
Williams admitted competing against a pair of Olympic champions puts winning the event almost out of the question.
“We knew we had no chance of even coming close to them,” Williams said with a chuckle. “They are in their own league, but it was nice to be in the same event with them.”
He also got the chance to talk to the champions.
“We didn’t talk during the event because everybody is so focused on what they have to do,” Williams said. “But afterwards he (Moir) congratulated us our skate and wished us luck at Junior Worlds.”
They had some added excitement prior to stepping on to the ice for their four-minute free-skate performance.
“We found out shortly before our event they were going to show us on TV,” Williams said. “So we had our friends and families watch back home. Afterwards we were done competing we got messages back home telling us: ‘Oh you guys were so good.’”
Now they will focus on the World Junior championships in Minsk, Belarus Feb. 27 to March 4.
They finished eighth at the 2011 World Junior Figure Skating championships in South Korea. Their experience at the Nationals in Moncton will help them as they prepare for the Junior Worlds in Belarus.
“The top two teams at national were in the top four in the world right now,” Williams said. “We really had to step it up for nationals to compete with the Seniors.
“I’m hoping we will look like a more mature Senior team than a Junior team.”
Their goal this year is to finish in the top three in Belarus at the World Junior championships.
Williams and Orford train out of the Centre of Excellence in Burnaby, B.C.
