Vancouver Sun
(Lyndon Little)
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
MICHAEL SLIPCHUK
The 1992 Canadian men's figure skating champion was in Vancouver recently in his capacity as the high performance director for Skate Canada.
Q. You started your new job with Skate Canada last year. Could you outline your areas of responsibility?
A. As high performance director I'm responsible for our national team program, our skater development program and our talent identification program.
Q. Could you fill in the blanks on your resume between the time you retired from skating until assuming your current position?
A. After retiring from (Olympic eligible) skating in 1992 I did two years of Stars on Ice. I also did some pro competition skating until 1995. That's the year I moved to Calgary and became the head teaching pro at the Glencoe Club. The last few years I've also served as an International Skating Union technical specialist (the part of the judging panel that identifies jumps and grades elements).
Q. As a competitor you frequently played second fiddle in Canada to four-time world champion Kurt Browning. Was that particularly frustrating or did you come to sit back and just admire Kurt as a skater?
A. At the start, you always view yourself in deep competition. But at some point it became clear when Kurt became a world champion and I was No. 9 in the world I had to focus on myself. I had more success that way. If I had to come No. 2 in Canada I couldn't think of anybody better to be second to than Kurt.
Q. The ISU's new scoring system has been in effect for a few years now. Does it seem to have become generally accepted by the international skating community?
A. The system has been accepted well. The skaters get an automatic feedback on how they did that day. They're assessed on their success or failure of all their jumps and elements. Rarely do people take the results and have concerns. The concerns now are how they performed and how they can improved for the next time.
Q. International skating success seems to go in cycles. How do you view the state of Canadian figure skating right now?
A. I think we're kind of on the upswing right now. We have a really young world and national team. And our junior program is really coming along. The future looks good. As much as our focus is on 2010 right now, we're also starting our preparation for 2014.
llittle@png.canwest.com© The Vancouver Sun 2007
