Oops! - a press blunder for an underwelming British Championships

The Britsh Press made a blunder today by announcing the results of the British figure skating championships before the competition was even finished!

Unsurprisingly, they got the result wrong too! Jenna McCorkell did win herself another british championship, but against a tiny and weak field.

The senior competitions were lacking in big names (or many names at all) with only 3 ladies, 8 men, 2 pairs and 1 ice dance couple!

The full results (including junior, novice and syncro) can be seen here.

It can be safely said that the results are disappointing and even the senior champions' scores would rank very poorly on the international stage. It is worth noting that GB's most famous and successful skaters of the present (Sinead & John Kerr) are out with injury at the moment, and their olympic team-mates from Vancouver, Coomes & Buckland withdrew after the short dance, but there seems to be a distinct lack of new talent to following behind them.

In the ladies event Karly Robertson has been in the shadow of McKorkell for several years. Her only major international assignments are at the European championships in '09 and '10 when GB managed to qualify 2 ladies spots. She did at least make the cut for the free-skate finishing 21st and 23rd on each occasion. Perhaps one new face we might hope to see more of in the future is junior champion Katie Powell (pictured). Although she too has a long way to go to be competitive internationally. She finished 12th at the European youth olympics and 14th at a recent JGP event.

There have been complaints from many corners that British sport has poured much of it's funding into summer olympic sports in the lead up to London 2012, but can a lack of funding really account for the lack of success of British skaters?  The days of success of T&D and John Curry seem a very very long time ago.