Spending around four hours a week on the ice, figure skater Tayler Kelsey is hoping to get to a higher level by the end of the season.
“I want to try to do my Star 2 test so I’ll be in Star 3,” said the 13-year-old skater.
Previously in this season, Kelsey attained a bronze star for Star 2 Freeskate at a competition in Summerland on Nov. 23 and 24.
“So it was loop jump, waltz to, backspins, and spiral sequences,” she lists off what she had to. “I think it was that and maybe one other.”
Related: Athlete in Focus: Katharina Wetzig
Kelsey began figure skating around 2011.
“I think it was [because] one of my friends asked me if I wanted to try it and I did, so I started then,” she explains. “I like being out there on the ice.”
Her favourite part about figure skating is the year-end competition, adding that it’s very fun for her to watch all the other kids do the performances they have worked on throughout the year as well as watching all the solos.
Other than passing the Star 2 test, Kelsey also hopes to master the landing of two jumps she hasn’t been able to do for a while; the flip jump and the loop jump.
“With the loop, you have to do an inside three turn on your right foot and then you have to jump up, do one full rotation and land on the same foot backwards,” she explained. “The flip you do a mohawk and pick with your right foot behind you and you pull yourself backwards on to that foot and spin yourself around one full rotation.”
Over spring break, she will have a chance to show off those jumps, as she and fellow club member, Katharina Wetzig, are going to a competition in Burnaby (March 21 to 22) over Spring Break.
“[I’m] nervous with almost any competition but yeah, very nervous but excited,” she said about the competition.
When she’s not practising her own routines, Kelsey also helps out the younger kids in the CanSkate program as a program assistant on Mondays and Wednesdays.
“I help teach the kids. It’s pretty fun.”
