Nguyen’s world junior title shows future of Canadian figure skating is bright


By Lori Ewing, The Record



TORONTO — Nam Nguyen was 11 years old when he performed in the figure skating exhibition gala at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, a pint-sized phenom who charmed the crowd in his checked pants and goofy big round glasses.










Nam Nguyen of Canada competes during the men’s short programme at the World Junior Figure Skating Championships in sofia, Bulgaria, on March15, 2014. Nam Nguyen of Canada won the gold medal with 217.06 points, Adian pitkeev of Russia won the silver medal with 212.51 points, Nathan Chen of the United States won the bronze medal with 212.03 points. (Xinhua/Liu Zai)


His role represented the future of figure skating.


Nguyen met with reporters Tuesday fresh off his recent victory at the world junior championships, and said he couldn’t have imagined back then that the future would arrive so quickly.


“It is crazy,” Nguyen said. “I was on the Olympic ice just performing, doing the gala, and I think from there a lot of people took notice of me. And from then until now, I trained really hard and I accomplished a lot of things in that time.


“And now I’m the junior world champion. Talking to you.”


The 15-year-old from Toronto reeled off triple Axels with ease at practice Tuesday at the Toronto Cricket Club. He’s grown six inches or more in the past year, and carries himself with a maturity that wasn’t there even earlier this season.


Saturday in Sofia, Bulgaria, Nguyen laid down two clean programs, and landed two triple Axels in his free skate — a jump that has tripped up even Patrick Chan a few times — en route to claiming the world junior crown. He won despite being three years younger than the maximum allowable age for world juniors.


“When I saw the score, it was unbelievable, that’s the highest score I’ve ever gotten internationally … when I sat down there were so many things going on in my head, ‘I skated awesome,’ and things like that. I saw the score and thought, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe.’ “


What’s been a whirlwind season will continue next week when Nguyen competes for Canada at the world championships in Tokyo.


More and more these days, Nguyen gets compared to Chan, who isn’t competing next week.


“Some people say I may be the next Patrick Chan, and I think that’s a huge honour, he’s a three-time world champion, Olympic silver medallist, and that’s amazing,” Nguyen said.


Nguyen started figure skating when he was five, and like Chan, he originally took it up to improve his skating skills for hockey.


“I like to jump and spin rather than chase a puck,” he said.


He won national titles in juvenile, pre-novice, novice and junior, becoming the youngest Canadian to do so with each one.


Nguyen then moved from Vancouver to Toronto in the summer of 2012 to work with Brian Orser, the two-time Olympic silver medallist who guided Japan’s Yuzuru Hanyu to Olympic gold in Sochi and Yuna Kim to the Olympic women’s title in Vancouver.


“I told him (when he arrived), ‘OK, enough of the cute factor.’ It was fun and it was cute, and everybody was like, ‘Oh my god, he’s so cute,’ ” Orser said after practice Tuesday. ” ‘But now you’ve got to be a big boy, and you’ve got to skate like that, and there has to be maturity.’ So we started developing that.


“Also in his jumping. … He had these spindly little jumps, which was enough to get him through novice and junior, but when you’re in senior you’ve got to have some big jumps and get some air time, and cover the ice, and speed.”

Read the full article by Lori Ewing from the Record.

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