Let's see now.
Jeffrey Buttle sits out three months waiting for a stress fracture in his lower back to heal. Has to pass on the entire fall season, meaning he won't compete for real until the Canadian championships.
Then the guy goes out and hangs up the highest men's score — a whopping two-program total of 232.83 — ever recorded by a Canadian skater.
Tell me again how there were supposed to be doubts about where he was at?
“For him to come out after three months and put out two solid performances, that just shows you what kind of competitor he is,” said silver-medal winner Christopher Mabee, who should know — he's Buttle's training mate and good buddy.
“He really wants it, so he went out and got it.”
Did he ever. Seven triple jumps later, Buttle blew away the field for his third straight Canadian title. Even when he popped a triple Axel, Buttle was wily enough to throw in a second triple flip later.
So, Mr. Buttle, whaddya think?
“The back definitely feels good,” he said with a laugh.
“I’m definitely happy with the way it went. Obviously, it wasn’t perfect, and I think conditioning definitely played a role in that. I felt fine going into the second (triple Axel), but obviously there was a mental block. I’m happy that, after the Axel, I knew that because I singled it, I could add another triple later on. A little bit of number playing, maybe, in the program.”
Not that he was hurting for points. His 153.98-point score for the program was 11.7 better than former champ Emanuel Sandhu, who wound up with the bronze, and more than 20 higher than Mabee posted.
Buttle admitted later he felt comfortable — sort of — that it would hold up, even with Sandhu and Mabee yet to skate.
“I had an inkling (it was good enough),” he said. “But I had seen how Chris had been training at home, doing clean programs, clean run-throughs. He was only three points behind and I knew what I was capable of, so I definitely didn’t think I had it in the bag. (But) I felt pretty confident it would hold up.”
The music for Buttle's entrancing free program, from the movie Ararat, is a tribute to the Armenian coach, Rafael Arutunian, who guides his fortunes along with Lee Barkell at the Mariposa School of Skating in Barrie, Ont. Given what Buttle has been through this season, it was kind of appropriate.
“It’s about a struggle, and I was definitely feeling a bit of a struggle at the end of the program (tonight),” he said. “But I fought through that.”
Chris Mabee had it right. That's just what champions do.
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3 comments:
Jeff, you ham! ROTFLOL You just wanted to show me how to do a perfect single Axel in your FS. I won't be trying a single Axel until after 2007 Adult Canadians because I'm competing in Adult Bronze (no axels allowed). It's kind of hard to pick out the technic when you do those perfect triple Axels.
Ok, are you going to add the second 3 Axel and change the 2 toes to 3 toes for 4CC, Jeff? What about Worlds? Adding a quad too? I haven't figured out the your technical total for your FS if you had a quad but if you'd done the second 3 Axel and done 3 toes on the end of your combo's you would have had at least 86.14. Add 86.14 with program component score and you have a good chance of having 168.17 or more. Now that's just sick Jeff! And if you'd stayed up on that triple axel in the short you would have had 82.85 . Imagine what your total short and long score would have been together; 251.02 Did we use to see scores like these with the qualifying added in? Woah Jeff, Don Jackson may have been the first to do the 3 Lutz in competition, Elvis the first to do quad toe/2 toe combo and quad toe/3 toe and Kurt the quad toe in competition but you'll be on record for having the highest CPC FS and total score ever. Way to go Jeff!!!!!!!
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