Post by Admin on Aug 30, 2021 2:39:10 GMT
Canadian ladies have not enjoyed much success on the global stages since Kaetlyn Osmond hung up her skates, but a new crop of young stars is on the rise in the Great White North. One of those is Kaiya Ruiter, a 13-year-old who made her debut on the international junior scene last season.
Born and raised in Ottawa, skating has always been a family pastime. Ruiter fondly remembers the days when they would all go skating on the Rideau Canal “as something we all enjoyed doing. Skating is something we have all enjoyed our whole lives.”
In 2016, the then 10-year-old and her family moved to Edmonton for her father’s career and she began training with Ravi Walia and his team. Ten months later the family moved to Calgary and, upon the recommendation of Walia, Ruiter began working with Scott Davis and Jeff Langdon at the Glencoe Club.
Davis, a former U.S. champion (1993-1994) has been coaching in Calgary for the past 20 years. Langdon, a two-time Canadian medalist from Smith Falls, Ontario, made the move out west in 2008.
“It is a unique situation because the family is so close knit. There are four girls and they are all passionate about skating and sports in general. It is brilliant and refreshing in this day and age,” Davis explained. “Keaghan, 15, has just kind of stopped this year. She had been to provincials and Alberta sections as a pre-novice and was on the Alberta junior development team. But she had a couple of injuries and grew a lot, so she was kind of planning on slowing down this year anyway.
“Vaunya (who turns 11 on May 2) is a little spitfire. She is at the juvenile level and wants to go to pre-novice. She has all her doubles and is now working on the double Axel. She is probably the most intense of the four girls. And then, Vyan, who is 9, is getting some of her star tests and a double Salchow. She is as cute as a button. They are all at the rink every day, are so close, have a good base for understanding sport, and are all super motivated and dedicated — and so polite. It is a testament to their parents that they have been raising their girls really well.”
Davis, who has spent his entire life in the sport, first as a competitor and then as a coach, said he saw potential in Ruiter from the outset. “You do see those bright shimmering stars that get you excited and definitely the talent was there. More so than just her jumping ability, was the fact that she loved being out on the ice every second. She worked really hard, had a great work ethic, and really good skating and performance skills. So all those points were definitely things that made me say, ‘OK, this girl has it.’”
In November 2018, Ruiter started landing a triple toe and six months later wanted to try the triple toe-triple toe combination. “Kaiya was able to do it pretty quickly. Then she did a loop pretty well. She did a flip and a Lutz in practice but we did not want to burden her with too much stuff in the first year,” Davis recalled.
But what surprised her coaches the most was that Ruiter learned all the triples in a 12-month span. “Did we know that she was going to learn every triple in one year? No. That is stuff you don’t realize at the time. To think that she was going to learn all the triples and be able to do triple-triples in a year — I would say, no, I did not expect that.”
The young dynamo got her first taste of international competition at age 12 when she competed at the Bavarian Open in Oberstdorf, Germany, in 2019. She finished third at that competition in her only year at the novice level. The experience inspired and motivated the effervescent teenager to work even harder throughout the spring and summer.
She already had all the triples and along with her coaches, started incorporating them into her programs. Ruiter was determined to earn a place on the Canadian junior team and by the time the season opened in August 2019, she had three triple jumps in her short program and seven in her long.
Born and raised in Ottawa, skating has always been a family pastime. Ruiter fondly remembers the days when they would all go skating on the Rideau Canal “as something we all enjoyed doing. Skating is something we have all enjoyed our whole lives.”
In 2016, the then 10-year-old and her family moved to Edmonton for her father’s career and she began training with Ravi Walia and his team. Ten months later the family moved to Calgary and, upon the recommendation of Walia, Ruiter began working with Scott Davis and Jeff Langdon at the Glencoe Club.
Davis, a former U.S. champion (1993-1994) has been coaching in Calgary for the past 20 years. Langdon, a two-time Canadian medalist from Smith Falls, Ontario, made the move out west in 2008.
“It is a unique situation because the family is so close knit. There are four girls and they are all passionate about skating and sports in general. It is brilliant and refreshing in this day and age,” Davis explained. “Keaghan, 15, has just kind of stopped this year. She had been to provincials and Alberta sections as a pre-novice and was on the Alberta junior development team. But she had a couple of injuries and grew a lot, so she was kind of planning on slowing down this year anyway.
“Vaunya (who turns 11 on May 2) is a little spitfire. She is at the juvenile level and wants to go to pre-novice. She has all her doubles and is now working on the double Axel. She is probably the most intense of the four girls. And then, Vyan, who is 9, is getting some of her star tests and a double Salchow. She is as cute as a button. They are all at the rink every day, are so close, have a good base for understanding sport, and are all super motivated and dedicated — and so polite. It is a testament to their parents that they have been raising their girls really well.”
Davis, who has spent his entire life in the sport, first as a competitor and then as a coach, said he saw potential in Ruiter from the outset. “You do see those bright shimmering stars that get you excited and definitely the talent was there. More so than just her jumping ability, was the fact that she loved being out on the ice every second. She worked really hard, had a great work ethic, and really good skating and performance skills. So all those points were definitely things that made me say, ‘OK, this girl has it.’”
In November 2018, Ruiter started landing a triple toe and six months later wanted to try the triple toe-triple toe combination. “Kaiya was able to do it pretty quickly. Then she did a loop pretty well. She did a flip and a Lutz in practice but we did not want to burden her with too much stuff in the first year,” Davis recalled.
But what surprised her coaches the most was that Ruiter learned all the triples in a 12-month span. “Did we know that she was going to learn every triple in one year? No. That is stuff you don’t realize at the time. To think that she was going to learn all the triples and be able to do triple-triples in a year — I would say, no, I did not expect that.”
The young dynamo got her first taste of international competition at age 12 when she competed at the Bavarian Open in Oberstdorf, Germany, in 2019. She finished third at that competition in her only year at the novice level. The experience inspired and motivated the effervescent teenager to work even harder throughout the spring and summer.
She already had all the triples and along with her coaches, started incorporating them into her programs. Ruiter was determined to earn a place on the Canadian junior team and by the time the season opened in August 2019, she had three triple jumps in her short program and seven in her long.
