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The Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid, New York, was the best place for the two of us to compete at our first Junior Grand Prix. Since Ice Dance Elite goes to the Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships every summer to start off the competition season, the sights and feel of the small town were very familiar to both of us. This familiarity was advantageous as we could just focus on competing and not worry about getting adjusted to a strange place.
Upon arriving at the Olympic Training Center (OTC), we explored what was to be our residence for that week. The facility was enormous. It was a maze of long corridors and various workout rooms. The dormitories were very comfortable and even equipped with a DVD player. What truly made the OTC a highlight of the competition was the cafeteria! The food was absolutely amazing! There was an all-you-can-eat buffet that opened at 7am and closed at around 10pm.
After a day of satisfactory practices, the competition began. The first event was the Viennese Waltz. Even though we drew last to skate, we didn't have to wait for too long since there were only eight teams: three Americans, two Canadians, two French, and one Ukrainian. The dance started well enough, but on the final pattern there was a slight slip-up, and we ended up in seventh. However, we still LOVE the Viennese with a passion! Refocused and intent on just entertaining the audience, we skated our OD cleanly, received the second-highest technical score, and ended up in fourth place as we headed into the free dance. As it turned out, we also had a clean free dance, and we managed to maintain our fourth placement! We were very pleased with how we had skated, and we felt a lot more relaxed sitting with our teammates in the stands cheering on the other competitors.
This competition was such a wonderful experience as we got to meet a lot of other skaters from around the world. There was even a girl representing the Philippines! Mabuhay! It was kind of sad leaving the OTC to return back to Toronto, but our first Junior Grand Prix was an experience we will never forget ☺
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