THOUGHTS - "Finland and Other World Changing Events "

November 25, 2002

Dear friends,

I'm glad to announce that I'm a recovering email neglector! I realize that I seem to disappear for months at a time and don't have the witness protection program to blame. ( And that would have been such a good excuse :-) Well, there was that whole marriage thing too.... I finally have technology that works at my home now!!!!! I was able to replace my more-frozen-than-not ancient laptop with an iBook. That's right folks, I made the switch to a Mac. It took a while to get familiar with but now I'm up to speed. I also had to ride out the headache of a new printer that didn't work. It may not be a problem for you technological wizards out there, but for the less virtually minded, not much else can make one feel more out of control!!!

It took roughly a week for me to feel rested, but now I'm back into the swing of things from my trip to Helesinki. This was a positive trip for me for two main reasons. First, I came to closest ever to placing at an international competition with two strong programs. I skated a strong short program with a triple lutz- triple toe combo, triple flip out of footwork, somewhere between a single and a double axel (oops...), fast spins, and good performance. I was in a great spot at third place after the short. In my long, the only significant mistakes were a step out of the triple axel and a horizontally rotating triple salchow. (If you think amusement parks are fun you ought to try that!) At least I prevented any wear and tear of the fabric on the backside of my outfit :-)

Overall, these two performances were the strongest skates I've had abroad. I placed 5th in the long and 5th overall. Ilia Klimkin, who won that last two years bombed the short but unleashed his full repetoire in the long. He easily ended up bumping me down a spot. The second positive realization I had was that I felt like I belonged at this level of competition and can succeed at them. I still need to increase my arsenal to improve success but it was an obvious move forward. The only disappointing thing was that international judges don't seem to separate the first and second marks very far even if it is warranted. So I ended up with a lower second mark than skaters who didn't "skate" all that well. Thank you to everyone who supported me before and through this competition. You helped me a great deal. I took a few pictures while I was there and if I can figure out how to email them or post them on figureskatersonline you'll be able to enjoy them too!

God bless and thank you for your interest,

Ryan

Return to Thoughts Index