Mitch Calvert
She may be from a small town, but her figure skating accomplishments are anything but.
Emo’s Taylor Latimer, 15, scored two personal best times in both her long and short programs en route to a gold medal in the novice ladies’ division at the BMO Skate Canada Northern Ontario Sectionals in Thunder Bay over the weekend.
Latimer compiled a combined score of 81.33 to eclipse runner-up Danielle Coulombe (79.97), piling up big marks for the quality of her artistic elements.
“I just stay focused on my routine and stay relaxed,” Latimer said of how she approaches high-pressure events.
“I knew what I was there to do, and just went out and did it,” she added in a phone interview from her family’s home in Emo.
“I attempted a double axel in my long program but they didn’t give it to me, but it was my program components that put me over the top, which is the artistic portion of your mark,” she explained.
Program component marks are based on things like interpretation with the music, skating skills, choreography, and performance. In fact, Latimer landed the Jeffrey Buttle Award for the highest component score at the event.
The Northern Ontario Sectionals covers an area from the Manitoba border to Huntsville, and Latimer said it was nice to have family make the drive in from Emo to support her.
“It was great to have my parents and grandparents there,” she enthused. “When I was three in junior kindergarten, I brought home a flyer from school advertising the Emo Figure Skating Club and I immediately wanted to do it, and I thank my parents for letting me because I had a lot of extra energy.”
The weekend win was the third podium finish for Latimer this year to go along with a gold medal at Autumn Skate in Ottawa back in September and silver at an Oktoberfest meet last month in Barrie, where she trains out of the Mariposa Skating School while attending Innisdale Secondary School.
Latimer’s victory qualified her for the Western Challenge, which will be held Dec. 3-7 in Mississauga. The top eight skaters at that event then will qualify for the junior nationals, but she will have to beat out other top skaters from the other regions of Western Canada in order to do so.
“The Western Challenge is for skaters from northern and western Ontario and all sections west of there through to British Columbia,” Latimer’s grandfather, Steve, wrote in an e-mail to the Times.
“Taylor skated in the Western Challenge last year and narrowly missed qualifying for [junior] nationals, so she is looking forward to the competition this year,” he added.
Latimer is on the ice two-and-a-half hours a day, five days a week, and said she models herself after U.S. skater Sasha Cohen.
“Sasha Cohen has always been one of my favourite skaters,” Latimer enthused. “She is very artistic, very flexible, and a very nice skater to watch.”
Latimer is taking a well-deserved rest in Emo for the week before heading back to Barrie to continue her training, where she hopes to perfect her double axel and take the next step to the junior nationals.
Also representing the area well at the Northern Ontario Sectionals last weekend were juvenile pairs skaters Sophie Potvin-Begin and Mike Nelson of the Border Skating Club (Fort Frances), who won a silver medal, and preliminary skater Joleigh Hayes, of the Emo Figure Skating Club, who nabbed a bronze medal.
