#SCNats25: 'There's a lot of uncertainty'
Wesley Chiu would dearly love to win a second Canadian title next week in Laval. The question is whether his ailing ankle will allow him to have a fair shot at doing just that.
Let’s just say this isn’t the ideal way to go about defending a title.
With barely a week to go before the senior men’s event gets underway at the Canadian figure skating championships, Wesley Chiu is in a race against the clock. The 19-year-old from Richmond, British Columbia, is still battling through his recovery from a badly sprained right ankle he suffered during a practice session at the Cup of China Grand Prix event back in November.
“I’ll be honest, I’m not at 100 per cent right now,” he admitted in a conversation a few days ago. “Just taking it day by day.”
The level of concern is such that, when asked if he felt confident he would be able to compete next week in Laval, Quebec, Chiu said had this to say:
“Everything is sort of still up in the air right now. I don’t want to make too many promises, but I guess we’ll see. Still taking it day by day, see how it feels in the next couple of days, in the next week, and we’ll go from there. But (there’s) a lot of uncertainty, that’s for sure.”
(UPDATE: Chiu has withdrawn from the Canadian championships).
So yeah, there’s reason to be worried for him. But despite the doom and gloom that might accompany that quote, know that Chiu and his camp are making every effort to get him ready to compete at Place Bell. It’s been that way since the injury first happened, and has continued in the days and weeks leading up to the first big competition of the season for Canada’s top skaters.
“It’s definitely challenging. I’ve never been in a situation like this in my career. Everything is sort of a learning experience, but I have a great team of people that have been helping me with this,” he explained. “Probably more than 10 people have looked after me and helped me get back as soon as possible, and that’s all you can really do. Stay focused, take it day by day and try to make the most out of every day. That’s sort of been the plan.”
But the injury has clearly made it difficult for him to train full out.
“Training wise, with an injury, reps are limited,” said Chiu. “So it’s sort of managing that while keeping the fitness up. That’s been the challenge.”
The injury occurred on practice the day before the competition was to begin at Cup of China, which ran from Nov. 22-24. Chiu was going through a run-through of his short program when a triple Lutz attempt ended badly.
“My pick got caught in the ice and my takeoff was really awkward, where my body kept rotating in sort of an awkward position,” he explained. “And that was the end of that practice for me.”
Chiu and coach Keegan Murphy came back to the rink the next day and decided to give practice a try, seeing how the ankle would react. But it didn’t take long for them to decide that a withdrawal needed to happen, to protect the health of the ankle for more important events later in the season.
“We didn’t want to say no to that opportunity right away. We wanted to see how it would play out in the next 24 hours, because when an injury is fresh like that, you don’t have too much information about what happened,” said Chiu. “So we definitely left the door open. I tried skating on it the next day on the practice before the short program, and that was when I had to make the decision (to withdraw).”
What was most disappointing was that Chiu felt his season was moving in an upward direction heading into China. He had tweaked the same ankle in the summer months, which led him going through two summer competitions with “reduced content” in his programs.
“I tried to make the most of what I could do at that moment in competition,” he said. “The goal was really to build up from there.”
And when Chiu looks back now at what transpired come the fall, he thought that was happening. The Canadian champion placed 14th at Nebelhorn Trophy in Germany in September, then moved up to ninth at Skate America, his Grand Prix season debut, near the end of October.
But placements aside, he could see the performance level in his programs growing. Everything, you could say, was going according to plan. But then along came the injury that halted all that progress like a brick wall.
“I think it was building. It didn’t exactly start the way I wanted,” said Chiu. “But with each competition … each performance had been stronger and I was hoping to build off that in China. I was just an unfortunate turn of events. I was feeling really good and I was really comfortable with the programs leading into China."
“Every competition was sort of better than the next. You sort of hope that things keep trending in that direction but it’s sport, so anything can happen.”
As we’ve said previously, the men’s event in Laval figured to be rather wide open in terms of who might win in Laval. The list of contenders was thinned when a lingering injury caused Stephen Gogolev to withdraw. So that left Chiu, 2020 Canadian champion Roman Sadovsky and Aleksa Rakic, the silver medallist at this event a year ago in Calgary, to duel to be the lone men’s skater that Canada can send to the 2025 World Championships in Boston.
(those three and Gogolev are the only Canadian men with the technical minimum scores to go to Boston. Last year’s bronze medallist, Anthony Paradis, should contend for the podium again in Laval, but he has been competing in junior events internationally this season).
“Anyone who gets their job done has a chance to win,” said Chiu. “So it comes down to skating as clean as possible, quality over quantity — especially with the situation I’m in right now. Battle for every single point.”
In a funny kind of way, Chiu thinks what he’s dealing with now might help him in terms of the pressure he might feel coming to Laval as defending champion (hey, you try to find the positives where you can, right?).
“There’s definitely pressure with being a champion. I can’t lie about that,” he said. “But I’ve got so many other things going on right now; maybe that helps as a distraction. I’m just trying to take it day by day, focus on what I can do in this moment and that’s all you can really control.”
Another plus for Chiu is this: unless someone blows their socks off in Laval, it’s a safe bet Skate Canada won’t be making any World team decision until after the Four Continents Championships, set for Feb. 19-23 in Seoul, South Korea (they did the same before 2024 Worlds in Montreal).
That’s two weeks later than the originally scheduled date for Four Continents. So that would give Chiu another month or so to get healthier for that event and put his best foot forward there with a World team berth on the line.
“Hopefully, that’s the goal,” he said.
But for the moment, Laval and the Canadian championships are front of mind. And a chance to perhaps repeat that golden moment of a year ago.
“It was a crazy experience, the first few months of 2024. It wasn’t two of my strongest skates but it was enough, so it was definitely a big relief,” Chiu said in looking back on that weekend in bitterly cold Calgary. “Especially after being first after the short program. But yeah, it was something my coaches told me should be a goal for me last season. At the beginning of the season, I didn’t really believe them.
“So we’ve definitely come a long way, and it’s been going up from there.”
And if the skate gods are willing, maybe, just maybe, he’ll be able to keep rising next week. He’ll certainly be at Place Bell to try. “I’ll see you in Laval,” he said in concluding our conversation, and that has to be considered a rather encouraging thought, given the circumstances.
So, then, we’ll have to wait and see. Here’s hoping, for the sake of the competition itself, that he can at least give it a level good shot.
“It would mean a lot, a huge confidence booster for me, for sure,” Chiu said of the possibility of repeating as Canadian champion, should his wonky ankle allow him to do so. “Just kind of shows the athlete that I am. Overall, just a huge confidence boost heading into the Olympics next season.”
When to watch in Laval
More than 330 senior and junior skaters are headed to Laval next week for the national championships. It all gets started on Wednesday and runs through Sunday, Jan. 19. Here’s the schedule of events, with all of this being streamed live through Skate Canada’s website and CBC Gem.
Around the boards
One of the younger skaters we were looking forward to seeing make her senior debut in Laval — 2024 Canadian junior champion Lulu Lin, whom we profiled back in May — is another injury casualty this week. But according to Skate Canada, the 15-year-old from Oakville, Ontario, remains in the pool of skaters who will be considered for the team it will send to the World Junior Championships, set for Feb. 25-March 2 in Debrecen, Hungary. Lin competed in two Junior Grand Prix events in the fall, with her best result being a fourth-place finish in Latvia … Canada will have nine entry spots to fill at Junior Worlds: two each in men, women and ice dance, and three in pairs … For Worlds in Boston, it’s three each in pairs and dance, and just one for both men and women (yeah, perhaps we’ve mentioned the last part of that once or twice) … The senior entry list in Laval includes 17 men, 18 women, six pair teams and 10 ice dance couples. For the juniors, it’s 18 men, 19 women, five pair teams and 15 ice dance couples. The synchronized skating field consists of four senior and seven junior teams.