Pairs skaters primed for podium

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This article was published 25/02/2025 (393 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg pairs skaters Ava Kemp and Yohnatan Elizarov are primed to deliver personal best performances at the ISU world junior championships this weekend in Debrecen, Hungary, their confidence buoyed by back-to-back wins in January.

“We’re really happy with our training,” Elizarov said ahead of their departure for Europe. “We’re both very healthy, confident going into this competition. We’re excited to be on the world stage again.”

Kemp and Elizarov, the world’s second-ranked junior pairs team, have competed twice before at the global championships, ranking sixth both times. They were junior and international competition rookies when they travelled to their first world meet in 2023. Back then, the twosome was just happy to be named to Canada’s world team and grateful to get the experience.

“The second year, we definitely felt more pressure because we were having a lot of success. We won one of our internationals and got second at the Grand Prix Final, and then we won nationals, so we were feeling a bit of pressure at worlds and we didn’t know what that felt like,” Elizarov said.

“This year we know what that feels like, and what it feels like to have expectations for our skates, so I think we’re more ready than with our previous two years.”

The key, Kemp emphasized, is to keep their focus on themselves and their goals, rather than on their rivals or the ultimate outcome over which they have no control.

In Debrecen this week, Elizarov suggested they’d like to hit 170 points overall. “If we do achieve that, hopefully it comes with a medal,” he said.

Whether setting a personal record will be enough to land on the podium remains to be seen given the stacked field. Andre Bourgeois, Skate Canada’s Next Gen director, noted a handful of couples who otherwise competed at the senior level this season have chosen to return to the junior championships, including the 2024 gold medallists from Georgia.

A new junior pair from China that dominated in the early going this season is also among the medal favourites. While the Winnipeggers worked to regain their footing after Kemp’s back injury last summer, the Chinese pair posted a total score of 176 at the junior Grand Prix Final, 21 points clear of the five other duos competing.

“They’re a really good team. We’re excited to compete against them,” Elizarov said.

A win at the world juniors is worth US$15,000 for pairs, while the silver medallists earn $10,000 and bronze nets $7,000. Couples who rank fourth through sixth pocket $5,000, $3,000 and $1,000, respectively.

It’s been a year since Kemp, 16, and Elizarov, 21, have competed against the leading contenders, but the now two-time Canadian junior champions made a successful, mid-season return to competition with a confident victory at the Canadian championships in January. A week later, they secured an international win at the Bavarian Cup in Germany.

Since then, the two have pushed themselves in practice sessions to perform daily repetitions of both programs. Over a two-week period at their training site in Toronto, they skated multiple run-throughs of the two-minute, 40-second short program and three-and-a-half minute long program. Kemp said it’s a training strategy that works well for them.

“We do it no matter what — when we’re tired, when we’re energetic. That’s really helpful because on competition day we’re kind of prepared no matter how we feel,” she said.

Based on the results at the 2024 world junior championships, Canada qualified nine entries for the 2025 edition among a total of 134 entries from 40 countries. Joining Kemp and Elizarov in Debrecen are two other Canadian pairs, two men, two women and two ice-dance couples. Bourgeois believes only the pairs will challenge for the podium.

Somewhat unusually, the pairs event — commonly scheduled at the front end of competitions — will close the 2025 championships. The 20 couples representing 14 countries will have had three full days of official practice sessions before competing their short program on Friday and final on Saturday.