The World Junior Figure Skating Championships are major competitions for young skaters. This year Sofia hosts the big ISU event and to explain how important the competition is, let tell that 10 of last year’s participants are already Olympians at the XXII Winter Games in Sochi.
The new big star Yulia Lipnitskaya was silver medalist at the 2013 Junior Worlds in Milan and champion from Minsk the previous year. Right now Yulia is the new sensation and the entire world admires her. The 15-year old girl suddenly became even more googled that the phenomenal Evgeni Plushenko.
Another bright star rose at the last Junior Worlds: the attractive American Jason Brown. Like Lipnitskaya, Brown then won silver and now charms figure skating fans in Sochi with his amazing Riverdance program.
And how curious is Michael Christian Martinez story! He is the first skater from Southeast Asia to qualify for the Olympics and the only athlete representing the Philippines at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. Recently he explained that he has learned to skate at shopping mall rink. His family mortgaged their home to pay for his Olympic participation.
Competing in Sochi are also Gabrielle Daleman (Canada, 6th at Milan last year), Nathalie Weinzierl (Germnay, 10th), Broklee Han (Australia, 16th), Nicole Rajicova (Slovakia, 30th) and Julia Lavrentieva/ Yuri Rudyk (Ice Dance, Ukraine, 14th).
