The Face Of A Champion

If you walked by Dana Zhalko-Tytarenko this week and did the double take, you're not alone.
“Everybody tells me that, I always hear it,” the 15-year-old from Ottawa said yesterday as she talked about her skating idol.
“Either they say I skate like Oksana Baiul or I look like Oksana Baiul.”
Now she's a champion like Oksana Baiul.
While the title isn't world or Olympic champ, it seemed to mean just about as much to Zhalko-Tytarenko, a delightful, incredibly sweet teenager who lived a young girl's dream this morning by winning the junior women's gold medal.
Even a couple of hours later, the joy was still very evident on her face.
It still hadn't sunk in.
“I don't think it will until I get the medal,” said Zhalko-Tytarenko, who will have the gold slipped around her neck during Sunday's medal ceremony.
These are the stories that you love to tell or write about, that make you feel a certain warmth inside. A year ago, Zhalko-Tytarenko finished 14th as a novice at the Skate Canada Junior Nationals. She arrived in Halifax aiming for a top-five finish. Winning a Canadian title? The thought didn't even enter her mind.
Then, after placing third in the short program, she went out and delivered the free skate of her young life. Zhalko-Tytarenko, who skated last in the field, had no idea what went on before her. So when the No. 1 went up beside her name on the scoreboard, her jaw dropped and the cheers began to rise from the Metro Centre seats.
Canadian champion? Who, me?
“I still don't really believe it,” she said as she entered the media room for more interviews in an Eastern Ontario blue and white track suit, her long brown hair a perfect match for the big brown eyes that had a special sparkle on this day.
Zhalko-Tytarenko became the first Canadian junior women's champion from Ottawa since Angela Derochie of the Nepean Skating Club did it in Moncton, N.B., in 1992. Derochie now lives in Halifax and is part of the security staff working at the Civic Centre, the practice arena for this competition.
Zhalko-Tytarenko's story reads like figure skating road map. Her parents, Michael and Natalie, put her into skating on the advice of doctors in Kiev after she developed severe appendicitis before her second birthday. The family moved to Canada when Dana was four and settled in Winnipeg. Her coach there was Heather Kemkaran, a two-time Canadian women's champion.
When her father's job (he's an aerospace engineer) took the family to Washington, D.C. four years later, Kemkaran directed Zhalko-Tytarenko to famed coach Don Laws, who became her coach during her time there.
Two years later, it was off to Ottawa and the Minto Skating Club, where Zhalko-Tytarenko worked with Erik Loucks and Gordon Forbes. This year, she was on the move again, but this time for her skating: Zhalko-Tytarenko went back to the same rink in the Washington suburb of Laurel, Md., this time under the guidance of former Soviet ice dance star Genrikh Sretenski and his wife, Julia (they were her secondary coaches under Laws during her previous time there).
It was in Laurel that Zhalko-Tytarenko believes “everything came together” for her.
“I learned how to work more,” she said. “I’ve always been a hard worker, I don’t waste any time on the ice. But I’ve learned how to make every minute count and how to work on the right things.”
Next up for her will be completing a full set of triples: She wants to have everything up to the triple lutz in her arsenal for next season. Whether she'll stay junior or move up to senior, she doesn't know.
Then again, it's not like she thought she'd have to make that kind of decision this week.
“I really didn’t expect what happened here. I was not planning on this,” said a beaming Zhalko-Tytarenko, who still considers herself very much a proud Canadian.
“We are in Washington now, but I still think of Canada as my home.”
Sunday, they will drape the gold medal around her neck, and Dana Zhalko-Tytarenko will finally know that it's all very real.
That, like another Ukrainian skater she so admires, she is a champion, too.
Kinda looks like her too, don't you think?