Cheer Thread for Katia & Harley: Down Under Pair are on the Up & Up

[aftershocks]

Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya & Harley Windsor of Australia caught my eye at JGP Tallinn in the sp. I thought they were more interesting than the top Russian jr. pair who placed first in the sp. Lo and behold Katia and Harley took command and went clean in the fp too, while all the top Russian junior pairs made mistakes. As a result, A/W ended up taking home gold for Australia.

Harley seemed ecstatic at the end of their fp, and he was the one smiling the most on the podium when his country's anthem played. Of course his partner Ekaterina is from Russia, and they both train part of the year in Moscow. They are a lovely young pair to watch with well-matched technique and unison.

I also think that of the top Russian junior pairs I saw in Tallinn, Alina Ustimkina & Nikita Volodin are the most intriguing to watch (they won the silver medal).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11-LuPxwAlg Katia/Harley sp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZLRAbIhHjg Katia/Harley fp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S51gq6F7Qz0 Jr. pairs victory ceremony JGP Tallinn

Interview post Tallinn win: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3IjDm3S8nU

A/W obviously still have a lot to work on and a lot of growing to do, but they are very promising, especially considering they've been together for only 8 months.

The IN article on A/W's win at Tallinn:
http://web.icenetwork.com/news/2016...-australian-pair-takes-home-gold-from-tallinn

ETA:
More details have been posted in the Australian News Thread in GSD by @Sylvia

http://www.burwoodscene.com.au/2016/09/aboriginal-figure-skater-unlikely-partner-take-world/

 

[Sylvia]

No rest for last week's JGP Tallinn Cup pairs champs as Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya & Harley Windsor are making their senior international debut this week at Finlandia Trophy and, if all goes well, could end up at Senior Worlds this season.

@Bunny Hop posted this follow-up article in the Australian news thread in GSD after Alexandrovskaya/Windsor's historic win:

Coverage of the win in local newspaper (Burwood Scene is a free newspaper distributed around the suburb of Burwood in Sydney, and surrounding suburbs):
http://www.burwoodscene.com.au/2016/10/historic-gold-medal-indigenous-figure-skater/

ETA: A/W exceeded (31+) the Worlds SP minimum technical score (25) at Finlandia today and are in 5th place after the SP (54.54). They will go after the FS minimum of 43 tomorrow.

(ETA #2: Thanks to aftershocks for modifying the thread title at my suggestion.)

 

[Sylvia]

Digging out this thread from last fall (A/W are now 2017 World Junior champions and 16th in their Worlds debut in Helsinki) to share this in-depth article titled "How a young Indigenous man and a Russian girl broke all the rules, to conquer international figure skating" posted by @Bunny Hop (plus 2 other posts) in the Australian news thread in GSD:

Nice long article on Harley Windsor from SBS Online. There was also an item on SBS TV news tonight.
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/feature/breaking-ice

Thank you so much for posting this. A brilliant article, because it goes in depth into Alexandrovskaya/Windsor's history and training.
I am rooting for them like crazy.

Ice Skating Australia have added a section to their website detailing Katia & Harley's [WJC] win in Taipei City.

http://www.isa.org.au/katia-harley-pairs

 

[Sylvia]

There was also an item on SBS TV news tonight.

This was the 3-minute news feature on Harley that was aired in Australia earlier this month: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGdyMj9VW9o

ISU's latest Featured Interview: Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya & Harley Windsor (AUS) by Tatjana Flade, published on May 30, 2017: http://www.isu.org/en/single-and-pa...eatured-interview-alexandrovskaya-windsor-aus

H: We’re currently starting our new short program, so that’s in progress right now and we’ll be doing our long program in a month’s time.
Q: What kind of music have you picked?
H: For our short it’s a remix of the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black”. It’s very strong music and it’s a little bit dark I guess and needs lots of emotions and strong skating to do it. We’re trying to work around that and see how we can pull it off. We have no idea what our long program is going to be yet. Still listening to a few pieces of music I guess and trying to decide on what everyone likes.

Q: How is your Australian citizenship coming along?
E: There is progress. Soon I’ll probably get the residence permit and then it shouldn’t take too long to get the passport. I don’t know when this will happen, but the process is going on and we’re doing everything for it.