What's in a number? More than you think
Her August birthdate has fuelled many a conversation about Lia Cho's future path. But maybe we should remember to enjoy what we have in front of us right now.
What does your birthdate say about you? Apparently, quite a bit, when one spends a little time pondering the future path of a certain very talented young Canadian figure skater with boundless potential.
We speak, of course, of 12-year-old Lia Cho, the skating prodigy from Alberta who emerged from the recent Canadian national championships as one of the most talked about competitors of the entire event. Let’s just say it’s not the kind of thing that gets said a lot about a junior champion. But the 4-foot-5 sprite earned every bit of the praise she received in Laval, Quebec.
Cho’s free skate, to the strains of “Romeo and Juliet,” included seven triple jumps, led off by the triple Lutz-triple toe combination that is the current gold standard in women’s skating (only three of the 18 women in the senior event completed it in their long programs). Her overall score of 188.79 not only won the event by nearly 28 points, it established a new Canadian junior record. In fact, only gold medallist Maddie Schizas (203.87) surpassed that number in the senior competition.
So yeah, we’re talking about someone rare and special here, especially at her tender age. It’s inspired the kind of conversations about a Canadian junior woman that we haven’t heard since back in 2020, when Kaiya Ruiter won the national title at 13 years old (it’s her junior records that Cho surpassed).
All of which has led to the “birthdate discussion,” which I’m sure plenty of you out there have already had yourself. Essentially, it boils down to this: July 1 is the magic date in terms of being age-eligible for major competitions in the following year. For example, you’d need to be 13 years old to compete at the world junior championships in 2026. Which won’t happen for Cho, whose 13th birthday comes Aug. 21. That means no junior worlds for her until 2027.
If you keep doing the math (again, some of you already have), you can see the ramifications for her down the road. The age limit for both the World Championships and Olympics is 17 years old — it was raised from 15 in the wake of the Kamila Valieva doping mess that blew up at the 2022 Beijing Games — and that’s an age Cho won’t reach until August 2029. Again, too late for the 2030 cutoff (her birthday is three weeks beyond the deadline for that year’s Winter Olympics in France).
In other words, she’ll be 21 years old when the 2034 Winter Games roll around in Salt Lake City. That’s nine long years away and, as we all know, a lot happens in a young person’s life through their teenage years, both mentally and physically. It’s easy to wonder about a skater’s motivation over that period of time, or whether their interest in the sport might wane.
But to hear Cho’s coach tell it, this is a young skater with a tremendous level of self-motivation. And that can carry you a long way.
“She’s pretty special in that she knows what the other girls in the world are doing, and she watches lots of YouTube videos and sees others doing triple Axels and quads,” said Scott Davis, her coach in Calgary. “So she’s pushing herself technically, because she knows what the other kids are doing.”
Davis, a former United States men’s national champion, says that his protege is on the verge of mastering the triple Axel consistently. He also believes she “has it in her” to be landing quads someday.
The important part, though, is that this is all very enjoyable for her.
“We want to make it fun for her and keep her healthy, most importantly, because yeah, she’s pretty young,” he said.
As far as all those records she’s breaking … that’s not the kind of thing that gets Cho all fired up. At least not for the time being. Give a listen to what she said in the wake of her setting a new standard in Laval (which merely elevated the number she recorded at the Skate Canada Challenge in December, which broke the mark established by Ruiter in 2021).
“It’s not about (records), it’s just about showing what you did or how much you love the sport,” she said. “Just to perform in front of everyone and show everyone what I’ve been working on, and just performing in front of people.”
Maybe the lesson here is to enjoy what we’ve got in front of us right now, instead of worrying how high she can climb in the future — or how that August birthdate may hold her back (and who knows what becomes of that age rule in the future. It dropped down to 15 back in the 1990s. Who’s to say it can’t rise again before 2030. Or what if that July 1 cutoff suddenly became Sept. 1? Again, there is no predicting the future).
Perhaps it might be useful at this point to take you back to a couple of … let’s call them “cautionary tales,” involving Canadian skaters over the past decade. Prime examples of what can happen when the unexpected enters your world.
We’ll start with the story of Stephen Gogolev, who back in December 2018 in Vancouver, became the first (and still only) Canadian to win the men’s title at the Junior Grand Prix Final. He had been an alternate for the event, but drew into the field because of the withdrawal of another competitor. Presented with a major opportunity, Gogolev lit up the house with a dazzling array of quads and posted junior world record scores for both the free skate and overall total to seize the gold medal.
All of this happened just a few weeks shy of Gogolev’s 14th birthday (he became the youngest ever men’s gold medallist at the Junior GP Final). A little more than a month later in Saint John, N.B., he stepped up to the senior level at the Canadian championships and finished second overall after winning the short program. It seemed the sky was the limit for the skater deemed to be the “next one” in a long line of greats in Canadian men’s skating.
What’s become of him since then? Well, let’s just say life happened. Gogolev wasn’t much taller than five feet at the Junior Final; he’s shot up all the way to 6-foot-1 since then, and it isn’t a stretch to suggest that the growth spurt has played a hand in the persistent back problems that have plagued him over the past few years. The talent hasn’t gone away — his short program at Skate Canada International earlier this season provided evidence of that — but he hasn’t skated competitively since that event in Halifax due to injuries.
Again, something entirely not predictable.
Oh, and that 2019 Canadians, when Gogolev almost became a national senior champion at 14 years old? It’s kind of ironic that the winner that year was Nam Nguyen, another guy who has a similar story to share. Let’s turn the calendar back to 2014, when Nguyen won the world junior title at 15 years old. A year later, he became Canadian champion and wound up fifth at the World Championships in Shanghai. At that point, the talk started about a future rivalry between Nguyen and Patrick Chan, who would return to competitive skating later that year after a season’s absence.
But then … things happened to him. Those darned growth spurts (that again) pushed Nguyen’s height up to 5-foot-11. There were coaching changes. His love for the sport withered for a time. But there was a happier ending here. Nguyen got back on the nationals podium in 2018 in Vancouver, just missing out on a berth on Canada’s team for the PyeongChang Olympics.
(I’ll never forget the tears of redemption he exhibited after his free skate in the media mixed zone. Like, shoulders heaving level of sobbing. You couldn’t help but feel happy for the guy, especially if you knew his story).
A year later, he was back on top of the Canadian skating world again as a national champion. In the fall of 2019, he’d deliver an exhilarating free program at Skate Canada International that lifted him up to a silver medal (his best-ever finish at a Grand Prix event). Today, he’s retired and you hear his wild cackle in every corner of the arena as he launches T-shirts into the crowd between events at Skate Canada competitions. He’s having a total blast … literally. The skating world is fun for him.
Ruiter herself can even tell you a story of the unpredictable. After that magical display in Mississauga, Ont., in 2020 made her a junior national champion, the next two seasons were … let’s label them as different. First, a global pandemic wiped out Canadians in 2021. A year later, nationals was held in an empty building in Ottawa but Ruiter wasn’t there, her season cut off early by a gruesome training mishap.
It took her until 2024 to become a Canadian champion again. She was fourth in Laval this year against a field that proved to be more competitive, but took delight in seeing Cho raise the junior record she once held (the two were training mates up until this season). One year after she’d been an ice patcher at the nationals in Calgary that Ruiter won (Cho became a novice Canadian champion in that same city a month later).
So yeah, you just never know, right? Stuff happens, as the old saying goes (although maybe more profanely than that), and it truly is best to enjoy every step of the ride. And appreciate what we see, no matter the age of the athlete we watch. We’ve also entered an era in which great things happen to skaters well into their 20s … like, world champion things (say hello, Kaori Sakamoto).
The most talked about female skater this season is Amber Glenn, who won the Grand Prix Final in December, lands triple Axels with ease and is the best she’s ever been. She turned 25 years old in October and is a prime contender for worlds gold on home soil in Boston next month (along with Sakamoto, who is all of 24). In a world that’s often overrun by talk about the next teen phenom, it’s been a refreshing development.
Not to mention inspiring to skaters who may not yet be ready to hang ’em up.
“It’s very inspiring. When I competed at Olympics in 2022, I really thought ‘oh, I’m going to be so old by the next Olympics.’ You’re all laughing, but when the age limit was 15, 25 would have been old,” Schizas, who turns 22 next week, told a group of media in Laval. “And now I’m looking at Kaori and Amber and all of these mature skaters and thinking, wow, I could have more of a career if I want one. I could keep going if I want to. Whereas coming out of Olympics, that didn’t seem feasible or reasonable or something I could aspire to. I thought I had one more chance at a Games and that would be it. And now seeing how senior women has evolved in the last four years, it’s inspiring.
“It’s always nice when you see a 15 or 16-year-old have great success, too. But I think Amber’s got a story that a lot of people can relate to in different (areas) of their life.”
All of this is good for the sport. We can talk about pre-teen prodigies such as Cho in the same breath as skaters more than twice her age (let that sink in for a bit). And we can enjoy both sides of it, birthdates be damned.
At the end of the day, isn’t that what it should be all about?
Rockin’ the house
By now, you’ve probably seen the TV commercials for the annual Stars On Ice tour across Canada. This year, it’s being billed as “Rock Stars On Ice,” which is no doubt a nod to the theme Kurt Browning — who is returning for his second year as tour director and choreographer — is building his latest piece of magic around (after last year’s “silly science” spectacular).
Surely, that theme will resonate very well with three-time World champion Elvis Stojko, the Canadian who remains one of the star attractions of the show. While it has been out there for awhile that reigning World silver medallist ice dancers Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, along with former Canadian champion Keegan Messing, are part of the cast, a few more names were dropped by tour organizers this week.
Most notably (at least for fans from this country), that group includes three-time Canadian women’s champion Maddie Schizas, two-time national men’s skating king Nam Nguyen and Canadian pair silver medallists Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud. The press release accompanying the announcement indicates more names will be announced in the near future.
There are two skaters, however, that haven’t yet been mentioned. And if they stick to their guns, that’s not going to change. That would be reigning World pairs champions Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps, who indicated in Laval that they have declined all touring offers for the spring. Their intent is to get an early start on the Olympic season, something that didn’t happen a year ago due to touring commitments.
“We said no to Art On Ice, we said no to Stars On Ice, we said no to everything. We’re not doing any of the shows,” said Stellato-Dudek. “We said no to everything this year so that we can have training more similar to the end of 2023 going into 2024 (their World championship season).
“And we have to be ready earlier (for the Olympic season). It’s just different. We tried it (lots of touring) and now we know what we want for this year.”
While Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps attempted to make the most of any free time during tours to work on new material for this season — most notably, the throw-triple Lutz — it just wasn’t the same as full-on training.
“We got something from (touring), but I also wish we had more time to skate. The way that shows are, it doesn’t work that way,” said Stellato-Dudek. “You’re there at 10 in the morning and you’re there until 2 in the morning. You get one session to train and it’s 40 minutes long, and that’s it.”
Added Deschamps: “You’re gone for a month and you have 12 practices in a month of 40 minutes (each).”
Chasing an Olympic gold medal surely demands more than that, right?
A thousand words … and then some
Tributes have been pouring in from across the figure skating world (and beyond) since the terrible tragedy more than a week ago involving American Eagle Flight 5342, in which 10 young athletes, along with some of their coaches and family members, perished in a crash with a military helicopter in the skies over Washington, D.C.
It’s been both touching and heartbreaking to read some of these, not only because of the loss of life, but also the thought that the boundless potential of some of these teenage skaters will forever be unrealized.
This week, I’d like to point you toward a little series of vignettes that have been posted on Facebook (and Instagram) by longtime friend and figure skating photographer Melanie Heaney. For those who aren’t familiar with her work, Melanie’s business takes her to many lower-level skating events across the United States (she’s also been a regular at events in Canada for years) — the competitions that are a big part of the early development rungs for skaters aiming for much bigger goals down the road.
As such, she gets to know some of these athletes long before the rest of us do. It explains the personal touch she’s added to her tributes, and her anecdotes fit in such a lovely way with her wonderful photos (some of which, it should be noted, have accompanied various pieces of my prose in this space).
All of this got me thinking about something I’ve been meaning to do for a while here. And that’s to thank and generally recognize the photographers whose work has really helped this Substack sing since it was first birthed more than 20 months ago. Some of you, I have no doubt, click on the articles simply because you love the picture that you see. If you do … well, hey, my mad little strategy is actually working.
In closing, I’d like to mention two other people who have contributed to what I do here in a very major way. Most of you are no doubt familiar with the photos of Danielle Earl, who covers pretty much anything and everything for Skate Canada, within the borders of our country and beyond. And lastly (but surely not least!), a shoutout to Tina Weltz who, over the past two seasons, has become kinda sorta the “official” event photographer of Hammer That Keyboard (and who wouldn’t wear that “title” with great pride, right?).
The three women mentioned above (and there are several others who deserve this recognition as well. You know who you are) all have a passion for photography and the sport that they truly love. And all of us experience figure skating a little better, and a little more intimately, because of their efforts. We all owe them a debt of gratitude for the richness they add to our shared skating experience.
The next 11 months are going to be really interesting for Canadian senior women and the people who follow them. Nothing is a given and anything can happen.
I’m happy to see the longevity of the American and Canadian women. I just hate to see it when girls peak at 13 and burn out by 17.