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Post by Admin on Feb 4, 2016 1:20:32 GMT
 Prescott native Alaine Chartrand has won her first national figure skating title. The 19-year-old skated her way to a gold medal at the 2016 figure skating championships in Halifax landing 7 clean triple jumps for a total competition score of 201.99. Chartrand was second behind two-time national champion Katelyn Osmond after Friday's short program. Saturday's nearly perfect long program guarantees Chartrand a trip to the world championships in Boston, MA., in March.  Gabrielle Daleman of Newmarket, ON., finished third. Chartrand finished 11th at the 2015 world championships after a second place finish at the 2015 Canadian championships. She captured her first senior international medal last season in Russia  Chartrand was second behind Kaetlyn Osmond after Friday's short program. But she unleashed a spectacular long program to music from "Gone with the Wind" that included seven triple jumps and had the Scotiabank Centre crowd on its feet well before she'd taken her final pose. "Oh my god," she said. "I wasn't even into the second spin yet and people were screaming. "And just dealing with the music, like 'Okay, don't fall on your spin. Make it to the end.' "  “I’m not feeling like Canadian champion yet,” an overwhelmed Chartrand admitted. “I’m pretty shocked.” Shouldn’t have been, not with a seamless and poised rendition of her Gone With the Wind program that featured seven clean triples, including a triple Lutz-triple toe to start and a distinctive, perhaps even slightly weird double Axel-single loop-triple Salchow combination that looked quite fine when the 19-year-old from Prescott, Ont., completed it. Chartrand’s combined tally rocked her through the 200-mark ceiling at 201.99 — rare accomplishment for a Canadian woman, though Osmond did it twice before her career was beset by injuries.  |
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Post by Admin on Feb 5, 2016 1:38:32 GMT
 Alaine Chartrand is still getting used to hearing her name and “national champion” in the same sentence. “My performances at (Halifax) and my scores would have been second at last year’s world championships … So, moving forward, if I just repeat what I did at nationals, I know that I’ll be happy and I’ll be going for a medal at the world championships.” “It just seems so weird,” the 19-year-old Prescott skater said Monday, nine days after capturing the senior women’s crown at Halifax. “Last year I was second (at Kingston), so I wasn’t that far off, but it’s different when you’re actually No. 1 than just in the top three.”  Different also are Chartrand’s standing as a headliner and her mindset going into upcoming international events, including the ISU Four Continents in Taiwan Feb. 16-21 and the world championships in Boston March 28-April 3.  Chartrand placed 11th in her first world championship appearance a year ago at Shanghai, but she’ll have in-person backing from grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles and other relatives who have already purchased box seating at Boston’s TD Garden.  “I’m not sure it really changes anything when I compete, but I definitely have gained a lot of confidence from being Canadian champion. That’s a big title” she said. “I have never been the kind of person who has been super-confident, so, when I won, it was kind of reassuring that, ‘You know, you are that good.’  |
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Post by Admin on Feb 8, 2016 2:08:59 GMT
 Alaine Chartrand still has a couple of months before she leaves her teen years behind, so she’s not old by any stretch of the imagination. Neither, however, is she a 15-year-old just happy to be on the ice at the senior Canadian figure skating championships. “In my first senior nationals, I wasn’t really looking to get a world (championship) spot. I didn’t have that capability, so it was a different mindset. I just wanted to do my best and see where I would finish,” says Chartrand, a Prescott resident who represents the Nepean Skating Club, on the eve of her fifth appearance in the senior women’s division of the competition that starts Friday in Halifax.  “Now you know you’re one of the best and there’s a world spot on the line. I’m not looking to place, I’m looking to win. This year, I’m looking at it like it’s going to be a lot of fun. I’m going to enjoy myself. That’s when I skate the best.” After placing ninth in her first senior women’s national championship in 2012, Chartrand finished a surprising third in 2013, a disappointing fifth in 2014 and a satisfying second last year at Kingston, where she qualified for the world championships for the first time. She placed 11th in Shanghai.  Canada will again have two in women’s singles at Boston in late March and early April, but she faces some tough competition in two former Canadian champions: Gabrielle Daleman (2015) of Newmarket, Ont. and Katelyn Osmond (2013-14) of Sherwood Park, Alta., who missed almost all of last season because of injury. |
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Post by Admin on Jun 24, 2016 1:53:03 GMT
 Alaine Chartrand was literally speechless when she was named Brockville's 2016 Sports Person the Year on Thursday night. The Canadian senior women's figure skating champion also received the award in 2015.  "This year was extremely exciting," Chartrand told the audience. The Maitland-area resident and longtime member of the Prescott Figure Skating Club indicated that winning the national title was the result of a lot of hard years and hard work. Chartrand added that she had "a great team" supporting her.  This year's local honour was presented at the end of the 2016 Kinsmen Sports Awards Dinner at the Brockville Memorial Centre.  Guests at the dinner vote to determine the winner; the other nominees were North American hydroplane champ Bert Henderson, Vancouver Canucks and Team Canada member Ben Hutton, Brockville Braves goalie Henry Johnson, Canadian shot put champ Tim Nedow, Canadian adult figure skating champ Katie Pagnello and Canadian collegiate volleyball player of the year Jacob White.  |
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Post by Admin on Oct 14, 2016 1:23:58 GMT
Nepean Skating Club’s Alaine Chartrand of Prescott mounted a spectacular comeback to win the women’s singles silver medal at the Autumn Classic International figure skating competition in Pierrefonds, Que.  After placing sixth in the short program, she confidently charged through her free-skating final, earning first-place marks. “I felt in both programs I really attacked everything and I kept that fighting attitude all the way through,” Chartrand said.  |
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