Australia’s wonder pair Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya and Harley Windsor have capped off an incredible year by winning the Junior Grand Prix Final in Nagoya, Japan.
The current Junior World Champions, who have now won a total of five international victories and one third place podium result, always believed they could win the prestigious International Skating Union’s end of year event, which brings together the six best juniors and six best senior skaters in each discipline to determine the best of the best.
Australia has never medalled at either the Junior or Senior Grand Prix Final and this win is yet again another historic milestone for the nation in the sport of figure skating.
“Our skate was great. A little tiring for me but it was great,” Alexandrovskaya said immediately after the free program.
After a strong short program on Thursday, Windsor and Alexandrovskaya were sitting in second place behind the Russian team Apollinariia Panfilova and Dmitry Rylov and only 1.34 points separated the top four teams. The pressure was on for the free program.
Windsor faltered on the opening triple salchow – landing the jump then falling off the edge. Undeterred, they powered to their side-by-side triple toe combo in perfect unison and completed a quality packed program scoring a total 173.85 points sneaking ahead of Panfilova and Rylov by less than one point (173.01)
“It was a little tough, at least for me,” Windsor said. “There was one big mistake but we are happy that we pushed through it and everything else was relatively OK.”
Galina Pachin, who coaches the team with her husband Andrei, was ecstatic.
“It’s amazing. It’s like a golden rain this past two years,” Pachin said. “Harley told me that winning and gold medals are like an addiction now.”
“They are already more mature and definitely dealing with pressure better. I don’t any pair who have gone from nothing to win Junior Worlds and qualify for Olympics in just two years,” Pachin said.
On their goal for the coming Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, Windsor – who will be Australia’s first Indigenous Winter Olympian, was frank.
“We’re not there not to win a medal. We want to skate two of the best programs that we can and that our ultimate goal is to finish in the top 12. We will be extremely happy,” he said.
