HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2019-03-14, Page 9THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 2019. PAGE 9.
Sixteen-year-old Claire Mitchell
from the Walton area is the first
member of the Brussels Skating
Club in recent memory to achieve
quadruple gold status with the
CanSkate program.
Mitchell was honoured at the
club’s annual showcase last week at
the Brussels, Morris and Grey
Community Centre. Though she has
largely retired from competitive
skating and wasn’t on the ice that
night, Mitchell says she was
honoured to be recognized that night
and that skating will always be a big
part of her life.
Achieving quadruple gold means
that Mitchell worked her way up to
gold status in the four key categories
of figure skating: skills, dance,
interpretive and free skate.
Mitchell has been skating since
she was five years old, following her
sisters, Emily and Sarah, into the
world of figure skating. It was
around that time that she began
playing hockey in Brussels as well.
She still plays now, as a member of
the Midget BB Huron Heat.
While the Brussels Skating Club
has always been Mitchell’s home
club, she has also spent some time
with clubs in Clinton, Wingham and
Cambridge along the way.
She says that while over 10 years
of figure skating has been hard
work, there have been great
accomplishments along the way, not
the least of which is her quadruple
gold status.
Working with coach Shannon
Craig for most of her skating life,
Mitchell tried her first dance test
when she was eight. She says that
while there aren’t many
opportunities to compete in Huron
County, she began as a “test stream”
skater, seeking out competition
further afield.
In the early days of her skating
career, Mitchell said she was lucky
to have Craig as a coach, as she was
willing to work with her between
three and five nights a week, instead
of just one. Craig even travelled with
the Mitchells when Claire trained in
the summer in St. Marys.
Mitchell achieved both her gold
skills and gold interpretive in early
2017 and then her gold dance in
November, 2017.
She was the first skater in her
family to achieve triple gold, but she
didn’t stop there, pursuing her goal
of quadruple gold in March, 2018
with her gold free skate at the very
end of last season.
The free skate is the most
challenging of the four and has strict
requirements. Mitchell says that to
earn a gold free skate, the skater has
to land an axel and at least four other
jumps.
In her gold free skate test, she
landed an axel, a double toe loop, a
double salchow, a double loop, a
double flip and double-double
combinations.
While it took a lot of time and
involved a lot of long hours at the
skating rink, Mitchell said she’s
extremely proud of what she’s been
able to achieve and doesn’t think it
would have been possible without a
strong, local club to support her
along the way.
Mitchell says she’s very grateful
for the Brussels Skating Club – a
local skating club that has remained
strong, even as other rural Ontario
clubs of similar size have had to fold
for a variety of reasons.
Though she has been working
towards these gold certifications
since she was seven or eight years
old, Mitchell has quite a full plate
aside from her figure skating life.
She plays hockey with the Huron
Heat in the Midget division, in
addition to figure skating for
Central Huron Secondary School,
where she also plays volleyball and
is a member of the track and field
and cross-country teams, as well as
the Nordic skiing team.
Mitchell has been working
towards achieving various
certifications associating with being
a lifeguard, planning on travelling to
Markham and Canadian Forces Base
(CFB) Borden this spring for further
education ahead of working at the
Brussels pool this summer.
All of these obligations are in
addition to Mitchell working away at
Central Huron Secondary School on
additional credits that will allow her
to finish high school next year,
earning four years of credits in just
three.
When she completes her high
school education next year, she
hopes to apply to university this
winter to pursue studies in veterinary
medicine.
Right now, Mitchell says she’s
focused on hockey. The Huron Heat
team she plays for won the
provincial championship just two
years ago and they are currently
looking to repeat that feat this
season.
The team has won all three
tournaments it entered this season
and they are in the final round of the
Lower Lakes Female Hockey
League playoffs, hoping to earn a
spot in the championship weekend
tournament.
At the end of March, the late
Matthew Huether will be honoured
with a hockey tournament in
Seaforth to benefit the Trillium Gift
of Life Network.
Huether, of Londesborough, was a
member of the Young Bucks hockey
team, which has created and is
hosting the tournament. Huether was
a member of the team when it was
founded five years ago and had
played with them until the time of
his death last October. Huether was
killed in a single-vehicle incident, he
was 26.
Brad Van Bakel, a member of the
hockey team, said that organizers
had to cap the tournament at
16 teams due to ice time constraints
and that the tournament is now
full.
They are still looking for
donations and sponsorship, however,
with all proceeds benefitting
the Trillium Gift of Life Network,
an organization that focuses on
organ donation. Huether’s organs
were donated when he died.
Businesses can sponsor an hour of
ice time for $150 or they can donate
items that can be auctioned off to
raise even more money for the
tournament’s charity of choice.
Van Bakel says that Huether was a
Huether honoured
with tournament
Mitchell achieves quadruple gold for Brussels club
Something to smile about
The Brussels Skating Club held its annual year-end showcase last week, celebrating the club’s
best and brightest skaters, all within the theme of popular music videos from the 1980s and
1990s. Among those honoured at the Brussels, Morris and Grey Community Centre was Claire
Mitchell (back row, second from right), who achieved the first quadruple gold in recent memory
for the club, meaning that she achieved gold status in dance, free skate, interpretive and skills
courses. Back row, from left: Coach Julia Jacobs; Olivia Terpstra, Most Improved CanSkate 3-
6; Alexandria Reid, Spirit of Skating Award; Claire Mitchell, quadruple gold achievement and
Coach Sarah Strome. Front row, from left: Jackie Ludington, Most Improved Pre-CanSkate;
Aiden Lefor, Spirit of Skating Award and Warren Larocque, Spirit of Skating Award. (Shawn
Loughlin photo)
Years in the making
Claire Mitchell, seen above at last year’s Brussels Skating
Club showcase at the Brussels, Morris and Grey
Community Centre, is now retired from competitive skating,
but not before she achieved the rare quadruple gold after
years of hard work and dedication. (File photo)
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