{"id":14336,"date":"2019-01-14T08:36:44","date_gmt":"2019-01-14T13:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/?p=14336"},"modified":"2023-01-09T19:45:12","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T00:45:12","slug":"kirsten-moore-towers-and-michael-marinaro-aiming-for-first-canadian-crown-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/2019\/01\/14\/kirsten-moore-towers-and-michael-marinaro-aiming-for-first-canadian-crown-together\/","title":{"rendered":"Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro aiming for first Canadian crown together"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Claire Cloutier, contributing writer for Figure Skaters Online
\nPhotos by Robin Ritoss<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>As Kirsten Moore-Towers and Mike Marinaro look toward Canadian Nationals in Saint John, New Brunswick, they have one thing on their minds. Points<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Following their sixth-place finish at Worlds last year, the duo had hoped to qualify for the Grand Prix Final this season. Of course, having a home-country Grand Prix Final in Vancouver only made this prospect more appealing. However, the Canadians fell short, finishing the Grand Prix season in ninth place and narrowly missing the Final. In both their Grand Prix events, they missed a higher placement by less than one point. So that\u2019s what the team is thinking about now. Points<\/i>. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>It was definitely a huge bummer, being a half a point away in both of our Grand Prixs, which would have made the difference for us to qualify for the [Grand Prix] Final,\u201d Marinaro said ruefully. \u201cThat being said, lesson learned. We\u2019ve been working the last two months on getting every single point we can. We\u2019re not going to leave any half-points on the table in the future. Every point is critical. It was a tough lesson, but a good lesson learned moving forward.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

His partner echoed their disappointment. \u201cWe understand that, with the way the qualification goes for a Grand Prix Final, we are definitely not alone in this position. It\u2019s up to us to do our job. And we didn\u2019t always do it. So we definitely learned a hard lesson that we\u2019ll try not to replicate in the future.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Although it was discouraging to miss the Final, the team feels they put the extra training time to good use. \u201cWe did a good job of putting it behind us and taking the time that we wouldn\u2019t have had, if we had been competing in Vancouver, to work on some of our weaknesses and try to really rip them apart and start from scratch so that you could see the improvement,\u201d Moore-Towers stated.\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Moore-Towers and Marinaro said that this year\u2019s Canadian Nationals will be quite different, with so many long-time Canadian skating stars retiring or taking the season off. Once they were one of the newer pairs teams at Canadian Nationals; now Moore-Towers and Marinaro are the veterans– and favorites. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>It\u2019s different for us, for sure,\u201d said Moore-Towers. \u201cBecause for all these years to date, we\u2019ve both looked to our mentors for advice. But we both gladly accept the leadership role; we enjoy the role that we have within our own club. Of the six senior pairs at Nationals, three train with us. So we\u2019ll have four teams from our club in the event. Every team, whether they\u2019re less experienced than us or not, has something we can learn from.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Moore-Towers and Marinaro\u2019s goal at Canadians will be the same as always: To skate their best. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>We try not to be results-oriented, but of course, we would like to have our first National title together,\u201d Moore-Towers acknowledged. \u201cIn order to do that, we need to focus on each element, and we need to maximize all of our points. We need to get as many points out of each element as we can. So, our main goal is really improving from our past performances. And hopefully, should we do that, the result we would like will follow.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Marinaro concurred. \u201cDefinitely, our biggest goal is to show improvement from November [when the team last competed]. If we can show improvement \u2026 then we\u2019re going to be happy with our performance, however the results lie.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But, points<\/i>. What role will they play?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>With the new +5\/-5 GOE, we really need to maximize our strong elements,\u201d Moore-Towers explained. \u201cWe know which elements we are capable of getting a +5 [on]. And we need to do so. We\u2019ve seen in the Grand Prix season how these GOEs can really affect placements. How doing things to the best of your ability will get results. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>And actually, we learned the reverse in Japan,\u201d Moore-Towers continued. The team competed at NHK Trophy in Japan, finishing fourth. \u201cWe found in Japan, we didn\u2019t have any major mistakes. But we had so many little ones that it kept us off the podium and ultimately out of the Final. We\u2019re all learning with this new system. We know where we need to show our strengths, and where we need to minimize our weaknesses–and hopefully, get rid of our weaknesses.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Marinaro added: \u201cWith the new system, there\u2019s such a big range on every single element that there\u2019s really no \u2018break\u2019 element any more. Every single element matters.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One element that the team is still pondering is the jump combination in their long program. At Skate Canada, they went for the ambitious side-by-side double Axel\/Euler\/triple Salchow (2A\/Eu\/3S) combo that they\u2019ve been using since last season. At NHK Trophy the next month, the team switched to a side-by-side triple Salchow\/double toe (3S\/2T) combo. They said they\u2019re still working out the jump combo for the second half of the season.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>It\u2019s a little bit up in the air still. We had stopped training the Axel because Mike had a problem with his left heel that rendered him unable to train an Axel at all,\u201d Moore-Towers said. \u201cSo, going into Skate Canada, it was difficult for us to feel confident [on the combo] because we didn\u2019t have the numbers that we normally have. At Nationals, we\u2019ll be doing triple Salchow\/double toe\/double toe (3S\/2T\/2T).<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Moving forward in the season, we\u2019re not sure yet,\u201d Moore-Towers continued. \u201cWe\u2019re going to experiment a bit, see which element gets us to maximize our points the most. We just don\u2019t know if doing SBS 2A\/Eu\/3S, with a slight minus [in GOE], would give us more points than doing a 3S\/2T\/2T, with a plus. We\u2019ll do trial and error a bit, and see what our coaches feel and what we feel is our strongest bet moving forward.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s about the points right now for Moore-Towers and Marinaro. Specifically, getting the magic number of points to carry them to their goals at Canadian Nationals and beyond.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Kirsten Moore-Towers and Mike Marinaro look toward Canadian Nationals in Saint John, New Brunswick, they have one thing on their minds. Points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[290,462],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-canadian-championships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14336"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14345,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14336\/revisions\/14345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}