PRE-NOVICE WOMEN’S EVENT

The team that will represent the BC-Yukon Section at the Skate Canada Challenge began to take shape here Friday at Minoru Arena as the huge Pre-Novice women’s field (51 skaters) determined who will make the trip to Regina next month.

The top four finishers at these Sectional championships in Pre-Novice through Senior will go on to the Challenge event in the Saskatchewan city December 4-8.

The Pre-Novice event was the first competition to declare finalists for Regina and it was led by two Kelowna competitors. Ajsha Gorman went wire-to-wire in taking the event with 91.16 points based on her short (34.06) and free skate (57.10) performances.

Teammate McKenna Colthorp finished second with 80.60 points. Mt. Bouchere’s Kayla Smart was third with 78.18 points and Connaught’s Elvie Carrol fourth with 71.54 points.

Connaught’s Danica Vangsgaard just missed making the Challenge team finishing a close fifth with 71.17 points, finishing the free skate with the fourth best score but coming from far back as she was 19th after the short program.

Former National junior men’s champion (2012) Mitchell Gordon of Connaught easily won the Senior men’s short program (52.23) followed by Sungod’s kurtis Hori (47.62) and Connaught’s Weijie Chen (38.60)

In the two-man Junior field, Burnaby’s Eric Liu (54.64) bested Connaught’s Shawn Cerus (44.37) in the short program.

Vancouver’s Alexander Lawrence (34.22) is the leader after the Novice men’s short program and Coquitlam’s Benjam Papp with 30.07 points leads the Pre-Novice men’s event after the short program.