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SWEABURG'S GRAYSON LOCHHEAD AND SKATING PARTNER OLIVIA HAN WILL COMPETE AT THE ISU JUNIOR GRAND PRIX
posted Aug 12, 2016, 8:23 AM
Sweaburg's Grayson Lochhead and skating partner Olivia Han will compete at the ISU Junior Grand Prix in Yokohama, Japan
Woodstock's Grayson Lochhead, right, and partner Olivia Han won gold in the novice dance division at the 2016 National Skating Championship in Halifax, N.S. The pair made the jump to the junior category and will compete at the International Skating Union Grand Prix in Yokohama, Japan Sept. 7 to 11. (Submitted photo)
Lochhead, a member of the Woodstock Skating Club, became the club’s first skater to win a national gold medal when the pair won the novice dance division at the 2016 National Skating Championship in Halifax, N.S. earlier this year.
Following their gold medal win, the skating pair will make the jump to the junior ranks with the continued goal of competing both nationally and internationally after one year at the novice level.
“In first-year, we did really well. It was a natural fit,” Lochhead said in an earlier interview with the Sentinel-Review.
“I was thinking it’d be disappointing if we didn’t improve. Pre-novice to novice is a bit of a jump, not quite like going to junior, but being a first-year and to win is pretty cool,” he added at the time.
“Since we won novice, we might get a chance to compete in International events,” Han said in an email last February to the Sentinel-Review, “which means we will have to skate even better than just Canadian juniors but also international junior ice dancers… but we also need to improve on a lot of things.”
Lochhead is a former College Avenue Secondary School student who trains in Waterloo five a week between 15 to 20 hours a week.
The ISU Junior Grand Prix are a series of seven international events taking place from late-August to mid-October and feature categories like individual male, individual female, pairs and ice dance couples.
The ISU is composed of 69 member federations that are limited at sending a specific number of skaters per event. For the Yokohama event, Canada was allowed to send one ice dance couple, which are Lochhead and Han. The event will have 40 nations compete at various competitions, including 29 in the ice dance couples division.
The skating pair have set up a GoFundMe account to help with travel costs.
