Skate Canada

The second stop on the Grand Prix season is the Skate Canada International in Kingston ON this weekend. Canada will unfortunately be missing a few of it's stars as Virtue & Moir and Dube & Davison have been forced to pull out due to injuries. Still - many others will be looking forward to make a first big impression on Canadian soil since Vancouver


Men
Canada's young star Patrick Chan will be looking to re-assert himself amongst the best in the world after a slightly disappointing olympics. His performances at minor summer competitions were well recieved and having been training at altitude in Colorado he should be fighting fit.
He'll face competition from other young talents - American Adam Rippon (now Brian Orser's most senior pupil), Japan's Nobunari Oda and mini-Plushenko Artur Gachinski

Ladies
After the splat fest that was the ladies competition last week at NHK, the door is open for some surprise entries to win a Grand Prix final spot with a good performance here. The list for skate Canada is somewhat devoid of big names.
World bronze medallist Laura Lepisto was due to compee but is not on the start list. She recently started university so may be focussing on that for the moment.
In her absense the medal contenders include russian diva Ksenia Makarova, Canadian Cynthia Phaneuf, and the veterains Sarah Meier, Fumie Suguri and Alissa Czisny.

Pairs
This will be the grand prix debut of canadian Megan Duhamel and new partner Eric Radford - who recently finished 3rd at the Nebelhorn trophy.
The main medal contenders may be relatively junior pairs in this fairly inexperienced field - Lubov Iliushenka & Nodari Maisuradze of Russia and Huibo Dong & Yiming Wu of China.

Dance
In the absense of Virtue and Moir this could be the chance for British pair Sinead & John Kerr to challenge for gold in a season which may be their swansong. The Scottish siblings had long planned to retire after the 2010 games but found they were not yet tired of competing.
The home favourites at this event will be Vanessa Crone & Paul Poirier. Americans Madison Chock & Greg Zuerlin (who train at the Canton school of Ice Dance champions!) could also challenge the Brits with a good performance.


As ever the season after the olympics is a changing of the guard. More famous faces vanish off the radar and new ones arise. We may see a glimpse of the future at Skate Canada.

Full starting orders and results here.
The competition for all skaters starts Friday.