Posts Tagged ‘olympics’

Our Olympians are steadily returning home and that means it’s time to party! This Saturday, January 30th, we will be having a open house celebration at the Ellenton Ice and Sports Complex. It goes from 1:30-4:30 and you can meet the Olympians and congratulate them! Also, we have skates you can put well wishes and sign available at our front desk. Let the skaters, Caydee, Amanda, Jeremy, and Mark, and the coaches, Mr. Peterson, Mr. Johnston, and Ms. Smith, all know how excited you are they’re going to the Olympics!

The 2010 US Figure Skating National Championships in Spokane, WA have officially ended for all of the skaters training at the Ellenton Ice and Sports Complex. As I’m sure you’ve heard, we swept the pairs spots for the upcoming Olympics in Vancouver, something as rare as sending a Floridian to the Olympic games. Now we get to send four. Caydee Denney and Jeremy Barrett skated a flawless short and long program to have a final score of 190.30. That score was good enough to win them the national championship, gold medal, and a spot on the US Olympic team. Not far behind were training mates Amanda Evora and Mark Ladwig, who earned the silver medal with a score of 173.78. Placing 11th in their first ever senior competition, the 2009 Junior National Champions Tracy Tanovich and Michael Chau showed tons of promise for the future. The Ellenton Ice and Sports Complex was the only complex to send three teams in the senior pairs division to the National Championships! This truly proves that we have the best coaches in the country with 2009 PSA Developmental Coach of the Year and head coach Mr. Jim Peterson, two-time Olympian and skating director Mr. Lyndon Johnston, and world and Olympic champion coach Ms. Alison Smith.

Also, skating in the junior division for the first time were Haven Denney and Daniel Raad. They skated well, placing a very respectable 7th. Daniel also skated in the senior men’s division where he placed 23rd.

Tracy, Michael, Haven, and Daniel will all return to Florida tonight along with Ms. Smith. Mr. Johnston will return Thursday. Caydee, Jeremy, Amanda, Mark, and Mr. Peterson will all return Monday night.

Congratulations to everyone for the superb showing in the National Championships. Thank you for helping make the Ellenton Ice and Sports Complex one of the premier international training facilities!

Congratulations  to all of the skaters who passed evaluations this past Monday!

Just a reminder to everyone that the fund raiser for our potential 2010 Olympic skaters is this Thursday @ 6:00pm at The Hall in Palmetto.

For information and tickets please call 941-729-0700.

Lyndon Johnston
Skating Director