The magic of Lulu Lin
Meet the 14-year-old Canadian junior skating champion with the precocious talent level on the ice. And a few tricks up her sleeve when you get her away from it.
There’s always been a bit of magic in Lulu Lin’s life, it seems. Whether it’s displaying some of her prestidigitation skills, strumming a traditional Chinese instrument or the many tracings of her blades across the ice, the 14-year-old Canadian has found many ways to follow her passion.
While we’ll get to all of the above eventually, let’s start with the skating part of this, which is why we’re here to talk about her today in the first place. It’s been quite the year for the native of Oakville, Ontario, who started off 2024 in January by winning her first Canadian junior title. Then, two months later, it was off to Taipei City for the World Junior Championships, where she placed an impressive 10th in her debut on that big stage.
“Lulu had a great Junior Worlds … she kind of did what she did at Canadians and followed it up at Worlds,” said Skate Canada high performance director Mike Slipchuk, clearly impressed by the efforts of a skater who had placed eighth as a junior at 2023 nationals in Oshawa, Ontario, but took a mighty leap this season. “We felt going in (to Taipei) that if Lulu skated to the potential she had shown, we hoped she would be around that top 14ish or maybe a bit higher, which she did prove.”
Lin maybe understates it a bit in modestly calling 2023-24 “probably one of the best seasons I’ve had.” She was particularly pleased with the way she overcame an injury to achieve some of her biggest goals, something that hampered her efforts at a Junior Grand Prix event back in September in Gdansk, Poland, where she placed seventh in her international debut.
“I’ve been growing, and I’ve had a bit of growth problems,” said the 5-foot-2 Lin. “I think I had a muscle tweak. I wasn’t able to perform at my best.”
All was well by the end of November, however, just in time for the Skate Canada Challenge in Winnipeg, Manitoba. And Lin shone at Seven Oaks Arena, winning the free skate after placing second by less than a point in the short, all of which added up to a victory by more than 11 points, a gold medal and some serious momentum heading to Calgary for nationals. But Lin kept her expectations in relative check for that event.
“I went there thinking I could possibly place on the podium,” she said. “I was hoping I would place on the podium.”
As it turned out, she accomplished much more than that. It was almost the same playbook as at Challenge — third after the short, then roaring past the skaters above her during the free skate to seize the gold.
“I really tried to learn from my experience at my last nationals, and to put the short behind me and not think about it so that I could move on and perform the long with a clear mind. It helped me focus a lot more,” she said. “It really, really helped me when I thought that way. I was able to skate a relatively clean program.”
That program, choreographed by David Wilson to a compilation from Enola Holmes, by David Pemberton, included six clean triple jumps and proved to be nearly 10 points better than the runner-up. It pushed her to a victory margin of 8.74 points. Lin had to wait out two other skaters before she knew she had done enough, but it wasn’t exactly a nerve-wracking time.
“I was really rooting for the other skaters because one of them is one of my teammates (Megan Woodley, who won the short program), and she really supported me during my skating journey,” she said. “So I wanted to be there to support her skating journey. So I felt like no matter what happened, I was very proud of the way I performed … I was really surprised (to win) and happy and a little bit shocked at the same time.”
Skate Canada rewarded Lin with one of its two available spots for Junior Worlds — the other went to Kaiya Ruiter, who won her first Canadian senior title in Calgary — and she paid them back in a big way with her top-10 finish (it was 11 places higher than Ruiter, as it turned out).
“It was a bit overwhelming at first, but as I got used to the surroundings and I got more comfortable, I tried to think of it as another competition. And I was able to skate really good,” Lin said of her Junior Worlds experience.
Most impressively, she placed sixth in the long program, which rocketed her up five spots from 15th after the short. It was her best free skate of the season, and it couldn’t have been better timed.
“I skated clean at Junior Worlds, and I think all the other competitions during the year really helped me prepare for that competition,” said Lin of the result, which has fuelled her fire to compete on more big stages in the future. “As I get older and I go through the next couple of seasons, I really want to have more opportunities to represent Canada. It’s very inspirational because, when I was little, I really wanted to be able to represent Canada and go to other countries and feel very proud of my country. Now that is one of the goals that I have achieved, and I feel very, very happy about that.”
While Lin’s intent is to move up to senior domestically next season, she still isn’t age eligible for that level internationally. But she’s willing to be patient for that time to come, even if it means a few more years toiling in junior.
“I think there’s always something that I can do to improve, and having a lot of years in junior will help set me up better for senior,” she said.
Slipchuk also subscribes to that theory, believing extra years on the Junior Grand Prix circuit and at events such as Junior Worlds can only help with Lin’s growth. And the competition will still be stiff.
“She’s at least two years away (from doing senior internationally). But that’s OK, it gives her time to keep developing and keep building and growing,” he said. “She’s probably going to go through some growth, and this is the time to work through that stuff. Competing at the junior level is not a bad thing. It’s a tough category now. She did one Junior Grand Prix (last season), then domestic events and Junior Worlds. It was a very impressive debut for her — she was sixth in the long program. It was great to see, and that opens a lot of eyes when you do that at the Junior World Championships.
“When she gets out on the Junior Grand Prix next season and she puts out some good performances, that goes a long way with the judges because they remember. You definitely help yourself by putting out programs like she did there. Very good for her, very good way to end last year.”
Already, the work is starting to up the technical ante for next season. Her long program this season included triple Lutz-double toe and triple flip-double toe combinations — her short featured a triple toe-triple toe — but she’s looking for more. And that means ramping it up higher.
“I’m working to get a new triple-triple combo as well as improve the more artistic side of my skating … to be able to connect to the music more,” she said. “I’m working toward a triple Lutz-triple toe. It’s going pretty good. I’ve been able to land one or two a day, but I think doing more and more repetitions over the next couple of months will be able to help smooth that out and make it consistent. It hoping to have it in both my short and my long.”
It’ll further strengthen the technical package that Slipchuk already sees.
“She’s technically very strong and you can’t compete at the junior level without it. She does all that stuff (triple-triples), but we always have to remember is that they’re young and they need time. There’s always things to work on to get stronger,” he said. “It’s more when the opportunity comes, they get out there on the big stage and do the program. To lay down two good programs, that’s a huge confidence boost and it’s what you want to see. That bodes well for the future.”
Lin trains under the direction of coaches Paul Parkinson, Andrew Evans and Larisa Wyant with the Toronto Lakeshore Skating School, which is based at the Canadian Ice Academy in Mississauga, Ontario. It’s a group that provides her with the right kind of support at the right times.
“They’re very inspirational to me and they always give me very good advice, especially when I’m going through a little bit of struggles with my jumps. They really help with fixing them and create a good environment and a good space for me to continue learning and to continue loving what I do.”
She came by that love at an early age. While Lin’s mother, Helen, introduced her to a variety of sports to experience, skating quickly won her heart.
“My mom first put me into figure skating because she wanted me to learn a little bit of everything, like swimming and gymnastics and skating as well,” she said. “I really, really loved to skate, so after I completed CanSkate, I went to work with Paul. I’ve continued to work with him for the past eight years.”
She also spent plenty of time watching skating, and two of them — one from each side of the border — became her idols.
“One of them is Keegan Messing (a two-time Canadian champion), because he’s a really, really good skater and he’s also able to entertain the audience. And that’s what I love,” said Lin, who saw Messing perform live during the just-completed Stars On Ice tour. “My second idol is Nathan Chen (the 2022 Olympic champion from the United States). Not only because of his skating abilities, but I also strive to be excellent at my academic (studies) as well, and he’s really good at that, too (Chen combined his training with studies at Yale University at one point).”
Lin does her schooling online, which she feels is a better fit around her training. “I’m currently at a school based in the U.S. It’s an online school, and I’ll be staying there throughout my high school years,” she said. “It really helps me to be able to be flexible with my skating schedule. The courses are optimized toward your time.”
Chen also inspired Lin in another way, when he roared back from a disastrous short program at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, moving up from 17th place to fifth by winning the free skate with a six-quad tour de force. It further sparked Lin to reach for her biggest ambition.
“I really want to be able to represent Canada at the Olympics one day. Ever since I started skating, it’s been a life-long dream,” she said.
Lest you think Lin’s life revolves completely around sport and school … allow us to change your minds a little bit in that area. We’ll start with her previously mentioned magic abilities, which you can see for yourself in this video (Lin was 11 years old at the time this was filmed).
So how did this all start?
“That was thanks to my mom as well,” she said of Helen, who is a banker (her father Steven is a chemical engineer). “She introduced me to my teacher (Andrew Woo) and I think we really hit it off.
“(Magic) is very amazing when I’m able to perform all these hard tricks and when I finally mastered a specific trick. It’s very fulfilling and it’s also very entertaining for an audience to be able to watch the things that I can perform.”
It doesn’t end there for Lin, whose interests also reach into music and art.
“I have two other hobbies. I play an instrument called the Guzheng; it’s similar to a harp (in English, it’s known as a zither). And I also love art, anything to do with drawing or painting. I usually spend more time on both in the summer,” she said. “It really helps me express myself. The Guzheng is a Chinese instrument; it’s something that’s very culturally representative of myself. I think it really allows me to express myself, and the same with art.”
Expression, as you no doubt know, is a very big part of figure skating as well. And Lin believes her hobbies provide some assistance in that area. “I really think doing all these things can help because it allows me a way to entertain not only the judges but also the audience, which is very important,” she said
Lin has another outside interest she hopes can keep her involved in skating for years to come. “After I retire from skating, I still want to be part of the skating world. And I’m very interested in design. So my dream job would be to design skating dresses for all the future skaters.”
That’s for another day, however. One that’s a very long way off. For now, Lin’s dreams are on the ice, and about finding more ways to excel.
“For me, I really want to achieve a personal best,” she said when asked about her biggest goal for next season. “My coaches and my parents always tell me that you can’t control what other people are doing, so focus on improving and bettering yourself so that can you become a great skater.”
And if you can bring a little magic along the way, well, so be it.