PJ Kwong

Favourite skating moments, and we all have one or two, are not always about the making of today’s champions…they sometimes say as much about the speaker, as they do about the skating event or skater featured in that moment…in today’s Edgework:

DAVID PELLETIER

Technical Merit - Personal and professional highlights

· 2002 Olympic Pairs Champion.

· 2001 World Pairs Champion

· Canadian Pairs Champion

Artistic Impression - The essence of their story

‘It was the summer of 1990, and my partner Julie Laporte and I were going to be going to the Champions Training Centre in Cambridge, Ontario, under the coaching of Kerry Leitch. We felt that this would be a great opportunity for us to skate with lots of other pair teams, most of the best ones in the country. On the first day, and the first session that we were on, we were a little intimidated skating with the likes of Doug Ladret and Christine Hough, among others, and I was also feeling intimidated as a small town French Canadian boy, whose English was not too good. Anyway, in our first lesson ever at the school, Mr. Leitch asked us to perform a regular overhead lift. The lift went up ok, but all of a sudden, like a tree, I started to fall over. When I hit the ground, I started to cry. Partly from surprise, partly because I was embarrassed and partly because it hurt. Within moments, Doug Ladret was beside me and scooped me up, like a person would do with a young child, and he carried me over to the side. Once seated on the bench, and assured of the fact that I was not really injured, the concerned and caring faces of the skaters there surrounded me. In that instant, I realized that what could have been the worst moment for me, turned out to be the best moment, as all of the awkwardness, and fear disappeared.’