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Figure skaters land personal bests

Glengarry Skating Club athletes in Penticton bring home medals
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Glengarry Figure Skating Club member Isabelle Tuckwood. Submitted photo

Glengarry Figure Skating Club members have set new personal bests and landed medals over the past few weekends.

Saki Smith earned a gold medal for her efforts, along with setting two personal bests in Star 10 (first, 30.80) and Star 9 (fourth, 21.60) women’s competition at the West Kootenay Invitational on Dec. 1 to 3.

“Saki skated a great short program. Her program was well paced, and she earned all of the spin levels that we had planned. Any little improvement would have been enough to bump her score the 0.04 to secure a podium finish,” said coach Trevor Buttenham. “Her freeskate program was skated well, again earning all of her spin levels. She singled her two planned double combination jumps, but even with that she had a new personal best in the freeskate.”

Smith also finished with two personal bests at the Okanagan Interclub Nov. 24 to 26. In Star 10, Smith earned first overall with a personal best of 27.09 and in Star 9 she finished in third with a personal best of 19.15.

Glengarry came home with 15 medals at the Okanagan Interclub including five golds with Smith, Nadia Snyman in Star 9 (21.12), Danica Hipolito in Star 3, Noa Kan in Star 1 Girls and Boys and Leilani Sears also in Star 1 Girls and Boys. Bringing home silver medals were Samantha Macnally (Star 9, 21.10), Payten Ferguson (Star 3), Sofia Pereira (Star 3) and Kaleb Morris (Star 1 Girls and Boys). Five bronzes were also won by local skaters including Smith, Snyman (Star 10), Jocelyn Erdt (Star 6, 19.64), Erin Hipolito (Star 4 Girls 13 and over) and Isabelle Tuckwood (Interpretive - gold).

Other skaters and category results are: Tuckwood (Star 6, seventh, 16.63), Giselle Weisheit (Star 5, sixth, Girls under 13), Danica Hipolito (Interpretive -bronze, ninth with a personal best of 20.65) and Erin Hipolito (Interpretive - bronze, 12th with a personal best of 20.00).

Two Glengarry skaters took part in the B.C./Yukon Super Series Sectional Championships on Nov. 9 to 12. Jordana McEachern earned personal bests in two of her pre-novice women’s programs, finishing 26th in the short, 25th in the free for a total of 25th overall.

“She had a really solid competition, which was nice to see because it has been a one step at a time process, but it was her first year of pre-novice. There were 50 competitors overall at this event so for her to finish 25th is great. She has been really rock solid on her skates and it showed in the results,” said Buttenham.

Samantha Macnally skated in the free earning 20.91 points, good for 13th place.

“She had a couple of falls which was unfortunate because she had skated a really solid practice that morning and a good warmup prior to the competition. With it being the free program she only had five jumps and two spins. Once you fall it can be tough to piece it all back together for the later jumps. She didn’t get a personal best but this is only the second time she has been to this competition,” said Buttenham.