Kerrs Begin With a Personal Best
Figure skaters John and Sinead Kerr produced a personal best performance of 37.02 in the compulsory dance to earn eighth place ahead of the original and free skating elements of the ice dancing competition at the Pacific Colisuem in Vancouver. Teammates Penny Coomes and Nick Buckland lie in 21st position.
John was pleased with their performance, he said: “It was fine, it was fun. We skated pretty good and we were pretty happy with it. We’re confident we can build on this and we’re pretty tight with the two teams above us so hopefully we can have two more clean skates and see what happens. The experience of the Turin Olympic Games four years ago means we’re a little bit more ready for it this time.”
Sinead added: “I felt pretty relaxed actually. The crowd had a really warm energy and it feel like that energy kind of poured onto the ice. We’ve been training really well leading up to this and we’ve got a personal best so we can’t ask for more than that. It’s a really tough competition but we always knew there was a group of nine or ten skaters who could win it so we’ve kept ourselves in there.
“We’ve got some good crowd pleasing routines to come so that’s when we hope everyone will get excited and get behind us. We just need to keep relaxed, not get too tight and nervous thinking about it being the Olympic Games and just skate how we know we can skate.”
In reaction to Amy Willams claiming the gold medal for Team GB in the women’s skeleton, John said: “It’s fantastic for Team GB, we’re not really a big winter sports nation so a medal of any colour for us is a great achievement.”
Sinead added: “We actually watched it just before we came out to skate so it was great to get a chance to see her and to give us motivation to go forwards as well.”
Earlier in the day Team GB figure skaters Penny Coomes and Nick Buckland made their Olympic debut in the same competition. The pair, both 20 and from Nottingham, scored 25.68 in the compulsory dance, skated to Tango Romantica.
Coomes said of her first appearance on Olympic ice: “I’m generally pleased; it’s very different being at the Olympic Games with all the top skaters and the big crowd so maybe we were a little bit more tentative than we are in practice but we’ve got a lot to look forward to in the rest of the competition”
Buckland agreed: “It’s good to get that under our belt. It’s been our first time doing the compulsory dance in front of such a big crowd, so it was a great experience. You obviously prepare as well as you can do, so it’s nice when you get here, get your costumes on and it all falls into place.”
Coomes added: “When the stadium announcer said there were 320 million people watching on television we both kind of looked at each other and said ‘no pressure then!’ It’s really great that there’s so many people watching and it’s fantastic for our sport if it gets more people watching European and World Championships next year.”
Looking ahead to the rest of the competition Buckland said: “We’ve got to really attack our next two dances. We probably shine more in the original and free dance and we’re more comfortable with them. All we can do is try to skate our best. Our original dance is to Irish theme folk music which will show the contrast between slow and fast skating with some good lifts in there so hopefully it’ll really get the crowd going and be a crowd pleaser.”
Both pairs next compete in the original dance on Sunday 21st February before concluding their programmes in the free dance the following day.
Notes to editors:
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